University  of  California, 


(JTF'T   OF 


^- 


ENDEAVORS, 


AFTEB    THB 


CHRISTIA 


.D  By 


j^ijscourjsejs 


BY 


JAMES 


MARTINEAU. 


"  Je  sais  que  Dieu  a  voulu  que  les  v^rit^s  divines  entrent  du  cceur  dans  I'esprit 
et  non  pas  de  I'esprit  dans  le  coeur.  Et  de  \k  vient  qu'au  lieu  qu'en  parlant  des 
choses  humaines,  on  dit  qu'il  faut  les  connaitre  avant  que  de  les  aimer ;  les  SaintS} 
au  contraire,  disent,  en  parlant  des  ch9jiea.diiuaeat,au'il  faut  les  aimer  pour  les  con- 
naitre, et  qu'on  n'entre  dans  ^^H^^I^i^^W^  l^^i^^E^S^^PASCAL :  Pensigs* 


BSPBEETTED   FBO: 


BDITXOS* 


BOSTON: 

AMERICAN   UNITARIAN   ASSOCIATION. 
1881. 


University  Press:  John  Wilson  &  Son, 
Cambridge. 


TO 


REV.    JOHN    HAMILTON    THOM, 

THIS  VOLUME,    THE  EXPRESSION  OF  A  HEART  ENLARGED  BY  HIS  FRIEND- 
SHIP AND  OFTEN  AIDED  BY  HIS  WISDOM, 
IS  DEDICATED, 
IN  MEMORY  OF  MANY  LABORS  LIGHTENED  BY  PARTNERSHIP,    PURPOSES 
INVIGORATED  BY  SYMPATHY,  AND  THE  VICISSITUDES   OF  YEARS 
BALANCED   BY   CONSTANCY  OF  AFFECTION. 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  witii  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/endeavorsaftercliOOmartricli 


PREFACE 

TO    THE  FIRST   SERIES. 


In  a  little  work*  published  seven  years  ago,  the 
Author  of  the  following  Discourses  intimated  a  de- 
sire to  work  out  for  himself  and  present  to  his  readers, 
a  distinct  answer  to  the  question,  "What  is  Chris- 
tianity?" and  the  work  then  put  forth  was  designed 
as  a  mere  preliminary  to  another,  in  which  this  great 
inquiry  should  be  prosecuted.  The  purpose  then 
announced  still  remains,  and  the  materials  for  its  ex- 
ecution are  for  the  most  part  prepared.  The  present 
volume,  however,  is  not  offered  as  any  part  of  its 
fulfilment ;  but  rather  in  temporary  apology  for  its 
non-fulfilment. 

Of  his  reasons  for  withholding  for  ~a  time  that  prom- 
ised volume,  this  is  not  the  proper  place  to  speak  at 
any  length.  A  change  in  some  of  his  views,  and  the 
consciousness  of  immaturity  in  others,  have  certainly 

*  The  Rationale  of  Religious  Enquiry;  or  the  Question  stated  of 
Reason,  the  Bible,  and  the  Church. 


VI  PREFACE. 

had  a  share  of  influence  in  producing  the  postpone- 
ment. But  it  has  been  occasioned  chiefly  by  his  desire 
to  lay  aside  for  a  while  the  polemical  character,  which 
necessity,  not  choice,  has  impressed  upon  his  former 
writings  ;  and  which,  until  relieved  by  some  task  of 
higher  spirit,  misrepresents  the  order  of  his  convictions, 
—  engaging  him  upon  the  outward  form  of  Christian 
belief,  while  silent  of  the  inner  heart  of  human  life 
and  faith. 

Of  his  reasons  for  presenting  this  unpromised  vol- 
ume, the  Author  has  but  few  words  to  say.  As  its 
contents  were  written,  so  are  they  now  published, 
because  he  takes  them  to  be  true,  and  good  to  be 
recognized  as  true  by  the  consciousness  of  all  men: 
and  not  having  been  produced  as  taskwork,  but  out 
of  an  earnest  heart,  they  may  possibly  find  a  reader 
here  and  there,  to  whom  they  speak  a  fitting  and 
faithful  word.  Should  the  book  avail  for  this,  it 
will  sufficiently  justify  its  appearance  :  should  it  not, 
it  will  speedily  disappear,  and  at  least  no  harm  be 
done. 

No  formal  connection  will  be  found  among  the  sev- 
eral discourses  in  this  volume.  Prepared  at  different 
times,  and  in  different  moods  of  meditation,  they  are 
related  to  each  other  only  by  their  common  direction 
towards  the  great  ends  of  responsible  existence.  The 
title,  indeed,  expresses  the  spirit,  more  than  the  matter 


PRBrACB.  Vll 

of  the  book  ; —  which  "  endeavors  "  to  produce,  rather 
than  describe,  the  essential  temper  of  the  "  Christian 
life." 

The  Author  would  have  introduced  a  larger  number 
of  discourses  having  direct  reference,  in  word  as  well 
as  in  spirit,  to  the  divine  ministry  of  Christ,  did  he 
not  hope  to  follow  up  the  present  volume  by  another 
devoted  especially  to  this  subject,  and  a  third  on  the 
Christianity  of  Paul.  In  the  meanwhile,  he  trusts  that 
those  who,  in  devout  reading  of  books  and  men,  look 
for  that  rather  which  is  Christian,  than  which  talks  of 
Christianity,  will  find  in  this  little  volume  no  faint 
impression  of  the  religion  by  which  he,  no  less  than 
they,  desires  to  live  and  die. 

LiYEBFOOL,  June  20, 1843. 


PREFACE 

TO  THE  SECOND  SERIES. 


A  GLANCE  at  the  contents  of  this  volume  will  show 
that  it  does  not  fulfil  the  intentions  avowed  in  the 
preface  to  the  former  volume.  It  does  not  refer 
specially  to  the  ministry  of  Christ,  or  to  the  Pauline 
gospel:  much  less  does  it  pretend  to  investigate  the 
proper  definition  of  Christianity.  The  hope  of  treat- 
ing these  subjects,  in  a  manner  at  all  suitable  to  my 
estimate  of  them,  still  recedes  into  the  distance.  The 
materials  indeed  are  not  wholly  unprovided;  or  I  should 
not  have  ventured  on  the  pledge  which  still  waits  to 
be  redeemed :  but  a  growing  sense  of  their  inadequacy 
makes  me  wonder  that  I  could  ever  think  them  worthy 
of  my  readers'  acceptance  ;  and  induces  me  to  with- 
hold them,  till  the  deficiencies  can  be  in  some  measure 
supplied.  Should  the  needful  leisure  never  arrive,  or 
should  I  finally  esteem  myself  not  qualified  for  the 
task  to  which,  perhaps  with  presumptuous  earnestness, 
I  once  aspired,  I  shall  indeed  regret  my  inconsiderate 


X  PEEFACE. 

promise,  but  be  clear  of  reproacb  for  less  considerate 
performance. 

Though  however  the  present  volume,  like  its  prede- 
cessor, is  altogether  practical  and  unsystematic,  there  is 
a  sense  in  which  it  may  be  regarded  as  a  step  towards 
the  completion  of  the  original  design.  The  prevalent 
differences  of  belief  on  questions  of  theology  have  their 
secret  foundation  in  different  philosophies  of  religion: 
and  these  philosophies  are  the  product  of  moral  ex- 
perience and  self-scrutiny,  so  as  always  to  reflect  the 
conception  of  human  nature  most  familiar  to  the  dis- 
ciple's mind.  Hence,  controversies  apparently  histor- 
ical cannot  be  settled  by  appeal  to  history  alone :  nor 
metaphysical  disputes,  by  metaphysics  only ;  but  wiU 
ultimately  resort  for  their  answer  to  the  sentiments  and 
affections  wakened  into  predominant  activity  by  the 
literature,  the  teachings,  and  the  social  conditions  of 
the  age.  No  one  can  observe  the  changes  of  faith  and 
the  causes  which  determine  them,  without  discovering, 
that  the  order  of  fact  reverses  the  order  of  theory ;  that 
the  feelings  of  men  must  be  changed  in  detail,  their 
perceptions  be  awakened  in  fresh  directions,  their  tastes 
be  drawn  by  new  admirations,  before  any  reasoning  can 
avail  to  establish  an  altered  system  of  religious  thought. 
Who  can  suppose  that  the  different  estimates  made  of 
the  authority  of  Scripture  are  really  the  result  of  his- 
torical research,  and  are  simply  so  many  varieties  of 


PEEFACE.  XI 

critical  judgment?  Is  it  not  obvious  that  the  sacred 
writings  are,  in  every  case,  allowed  to  retain  precisely 
the  residue  of  authority  which,  according  to  the  be- 
liever's view  of  our  nature  and  our  life,  is  unsupplied 
from  any  other  source  ?  If  this  be  so,  the  psychology 
of  religion  must  have  precedence  —  I  do  not  say  in 
dignity,  but  in  time  —  of  its  documentary  criticism : 
and  every  word  faithfully  spoken  from  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  living  man  contributes  a  preliminary  to  the 
inquiry  as  to  the  inspiration  of  ancient  books.  I  am 
not  ashamed  to  confess,  that  extensive  and,  in  the  end, 
systematic  changes  in  the  opinions  I  derived  from  sect 
and  education,  have  had  no  higher  origin  than  self- 
examination  and  reflection,  —  a  more  careful  interroga- 
tion of  that  internal  experience,  of  which  the  superficial 
interpretation  is  so  seductive  to  indolence  and  so  pro- 
lific in, error.  And  possibly,  a  volume  like  the  present, 
should  it  at  all  awaken  in  others  the  sentiments  from 
which  it  proceeds  in  myself,  may  indirectly  lead  to  the 
recognition,  on  their  proper  evidence  of  conscious- 
ness, of  those  very  truths,  which,  in  a  more  systematic 
work,  I  could  only  aim  to  protect  from  the  objec- 
tions of  philosophy,  and  reconcile  with  the  results  of 
criticism. 

I  have  preserved  what  I  have  to  say  in  its  original 
form  of  discourses  prepared  for  the  pulpit.  I  have 
always  felt  indignant  with  those  preachers  who,  when 


XU  PREFACE. 

they  resort  to  the  press,  seem  ashamed  of  their  voca- 
tion, and  disguise,  under  new  shapes  and  names,  the 
materials  originally  embodied  in  sermons.  I  should 
as  soon  think  of  turning  a  sonnet  into  anx  epistle, 
a  ballad  into  a  review,  or  a  dirge  into  an  obituary. 
It  must  be  a  bad  sermon  that  can  be  made  into  a 
good  treatise  or  even  a  good  "  Oration.'*  In  virtue 
of  the  close  affinity,  perhaps  ultimate  identity,  of 
religion  and  poetry,  preaching  is  essentially  a  lyric 
expression  of  the  soul,  an  utterance  of  meditation  in 
sorrow,  hope,  love,  and  joy,  from  a  representative  of 
the  human  heart  in  its  divine  relations.  In  proportion 
as  we  quit  this  view,  and  prominently  introduce  the 
idea  of  a  preceptive  and  monitory  function,  we  retreat 
from  the  true  prophetic  interpretation  of  the  office  back 
into  the  old  sacerdotal :  —  or  (what  is  not  perhaps  so 
different  a  distinction  as  it  may  appear)  from  the  prop- 
erly religious  to  the  simply  moral,  A  ministry  of  mere 
instruction  and  persuasion,  which  addresses  itself  pri- 
marily to  the  understanding  and  the  will,  which  deals 
mainly  with  facts  and  reasonings,  with  hopes  and  fears, 
may  furnish  us  with  the  expositions  of  the  lecture- 
room,  the  commandments  of  the  altar,  the  casuistry  of 
the  confessional :  but  it  falls  short  of  that  true  "  testi- 
mony of  God,"  that  personal  eff'usion  of  conscience  and 
affection,  which  distinguishes  the  reformed  preaching 
from  the  catholic  homily.     Were  this  distinction  duly 


PREFACE.  XUl 

apprehended,  there  would  be  a  less  eager  demand  for 
extemporaneous  preaching  ;  which  may  be  the  vehicle 
of  admirable  disquisitions,  convincing  arguments,  im- 
pressive speeches  ;  but  is  as  little  likely  to  produce 
a  genuine  sermon,  as  the  practice  of  improvising  to 
produce  a  great  poem.  The  thoughts  and  aspirations 
which  look  direct  to  God,  and  the  kindling  of  which 
among  a  fraternity  of  men  constitutes  social  worship, 
are  natives  of  solitude :  the  spectacle  of  an  assembly 
is  a  hindrance  to  their  occurrence  ;  and  though,  where 
they  have  been  devoutly  set  down  beforehand,  they 
may  be  re-assumed  under  such  obstacle,  they  would 
not  spontaneously  rise,  till  the  presence  of  a  multitude 
was  forgotten,  and  by  a  rare  effort  of  abstraction  the 
loneliness  of  the  spirit  was  restored.  The  faculty  of 
fluent  speech  is  no  doubt  worthy  of  cultivation  for 
various  civic  and  moral  ends:  but  if  it  were  once 
adopted  as  the  instrument  of  preaching,  I  am  per- 
suaded that  the  pulpit  would  exercise  a  far  lower, 
though  perhaps  a  wider,  influence ;  would  be  a  power- 
ful agent  of  theological  discussion,  of  social  criticism, 
of  moral  and  political  censorship,  but  would  lose  its 
noblest  element  of  religion.  The  devout  genius  of 
England  would  have  occasion  deeply  to  lament  a 
change,  which  would  reduce  to  the  same  class  with  the 
newspaper  article  a  form  of  composition,  enabling  us  to 
rank  the  names  of  Taylor,  Barrow,  Leighton,  Butler, 


XIV  PREFACE. 

with  the  poets  and  philosophers  of  our  country.  At 
all  events,  he  who  finds  room  under  the  conditions  of 
the  sermon,  to  interest  and  engage  his  whole  soul, 
would  be  guilty  of  affectation,  were  he  to  disown  the 
occasion  which  wakes  up  his  worthiest  spirit,  and 
which,  however  narrow  when  measured  by  the  capac- 
ities of  other  men,  is  adequate  to  receive  Ms  best 
thoughts  and  aspirations.  I  am  therefore  well  content 
to  mingle  with  the  crowd  of  sermonizers. 

It  would  be  ungrateful,  were  I  not  to  acknowledge, 
as  one  of  the  results  of  the  former  volume  of  this 
work,  the  delightful  and  unsought-for  intercourse  it 
has  opened  to  me  with  persons,  whom  it  is  an  honor 
to  know,  of  various  religious  denominations.  In  the 
divided  state  of  English  society,  a  work  which  touches 
any  springs  of  religious  affection  common  to  several 
classes,  performs  at  least  a  seasonable,  though  very 
simple  and  natural,  office.  It  is  happily  an  office 
which  every  day  renders  easier  to  earnest  men.  For 
there  is  undoubtedly  an  increasing  body  of  persons  in 
this  country,  who  are  rapidly  escaping  from  the  re- 
straints of  sects ;  who  are  not  unaware  of  the  new  con- 
ditions under  which  the  Christianity  of  the  present 
day  exists ;  and  who  are  ready  to  join  hand  and  heart 
in  order  to  give  free  scope  to  the  essential  truths  and 
influences  of  our  religion,  in  combination  with  the 
manly  exercise  of  thought,  and  just  concessions  to  mod- 


PREFACE.  xy 

ern  knowledge.  To  find  one's-self  in  sympathy  with 
such  men  is  a  heartfelt  privilege,  superior  to  all  per- 
sonal distinction ;  it  is  to  share  in  an  escape  from  the 
worst  prejudices  of  the  present,  and  in  the  best  auguries 
of  the  coming  age. 

Liverpool,  September  2, 1847. 


PREFACE 

TO  THE  FOURTH  EDITION. 


Both  Series  of  the  "  Endeavors  after  the  Christian 
Life  "  being  out  of  print  at  the  same  time,  I  have 
availed  myself  of  the  opportunity,  in  reproducing  and 
revising  them,  to  throw  them  together  into  a  single 
volume  :  and  I  am  glad  to  seek  entrance  for  them 
to  a'  new  class  of  readers  by  a  reduction  of  price 
which  their  more  assured  place  now  renders  pos- 
sible. 

It  was  not  without  uneasiness  that  I  began  to  cor- 
rect the  proofs  of  this  new  edition.  The  twenty  years 
which  had  elapsed  since  the  sheets  passed  under 
my  eye  had  been  marked  by  momentous  changes  in 
theological  feeling  and  belief,  to  which,  in  common 
with  my  contemporaries,  I  could  not  pretend  to  have 
been  insensible.  And  it  was  natural  to  fear  that  a 
book  produced  at  the  other  end  of  that  interval,  must 
now  be  out  of  date.     I  was  relieved  and  surprised  to 

find  how   little  it  had  been  thrown  out  of   tune  by 

b 


XVm  PREFACE. 

the  altered  pitch  of  thought  and  sentiment  ;  how 
much  less  indeed  it  has  to  apprehend  to-day  from 
any  jar  against  the  prevailing  tone  of  religion,  than 
at  the  hour  of  its  first  appearance.  It  would  have 
been  far  otherwise,  had  it  treated  of  subjects  whose 
interest  is  critical  or  speculative,  and  which  take  new 
aspects  with  the  shifting  light.  But  appealing  mainly 
to  the  simplest  trusts  and  aspirations  of  the  human 
heart,  it  is  compensated  for  having  nothing  new  upon 
its  page,  by  having  so  much  the  less  that  is  liable  to 
grow  old ;  and,  while  not  pretending  to  trace  any  line 
of  progress  in  religion,  gains  a  little  shelter  from  its 
permanence.  To  heal  the  broken  unity  of  Christen- 
dom, the  scholar  may  rely  on  the  ultimate  establish- 
ment of  his  critical  results;  the  ecclesiast  may  plan 
treaties  of  peace  and  fusions  of  doctrine  between 
Church  and  Church  ;  but,  meanwhile,  those  who  find 
it  more  congenial  to  pass  behind  the  whole  field  of 
theological  divergency,  and  linger  near  the  common 
springs  of  all  human  piety  and  hope,  may  perhaps  be 
preparing  some  first  lines  of  a  true  Mrenikon. 

London,  November  22, 1806. 


CONTENTS. 


DISOOUBSB  PAQK 

I.  The  Spirit  of  Life  in  Jesus  Christ 1 

n.  The  Besetting  God 12 

m.  Great  Principles  and  Small  Duties 21 

rV.  Eden  and  Gethsemane 30 

V.  Sorrow  no  Sin 39 

VI.  Christian  Peace 48 

Vn.  Religion  on  False  Pretences 58 

Yiii.  Mammon-Worship •    .  68 

IX.  The  Kingdom  of  God  within  us,  Part  I.     .     .     .  78 

X.  The  Kingdom  of  God  within  us,  Part  11.    .     .     .  88 

XI.  The  Contentment  of  Sorrow 98 

XII.  Immortality 107 

Xin.  The  Communion  of  Saints 119 

XIV.  Christ's  Treatment  of  Guilt 129 

XV.  The  Strength  of  the  Lonely 139 

XVI.  Hand  and  Heart 148 

XVII.  Silence  and  Meditation 158 

XVni.  Winter  Worship 168 

XIX.  The  Great  Year  of  Providence 178 

XX.  Christ  and  the  Little  Child 191 

XXI.  The  Christianity  of  Old  Age 201 

XXn.  Nothing  Human  ever  dies 211 

XXin.  Where  is  thy  God  ? 221 

XXIV.  The  Sorrow  with  Downward  Look 234 

XXV.  The  Shadow  of  Death 244 

XXVI.  Great  Hopes  for  Great  Souls 254 

XXVIL  Lo!  God  is  here 265 

XXVIII.  Christian  Self -Consciousness 276 


XX  CONTENTS. 

DISCOUBSB  PAOB 

XXIX.  The  Unclouded  Heart 289 

XXX.  Help  Thou  mine  Unbelief 303 

XXXI.  Having,  Doing,  and  Being 312 

XXXn.  The  Free-Man  of  Christ 323 

XXXm.  The  Good  Soldier  of  Jesus  Christ 333 

XXXIV.  The  Reahn  of  Order 344 

XXXV.  Christian  Doctrine  of  Merit 354 

XXXVt.  The  Child's  Thought 365 

XXXVn.  Looking  up,  and  Lifting  up 377 

XXXVin.  The  Christian  Time-View 388 

XXXIX.  The  Family  in  Heaven  and  Earth 399 

XL.  The  Single  and  the  Evil  Eye 409 

XLI.  The  Seven  Sleepers 419 

XLU.  The  Sphere  of  Silence.  —  1.  Man»s     ....  430 

XLni.  The  Sphere  of  Silence.— -2.  God's     ....  440 


// V       '^'''   ■f'H''^ 


I. 

THE   SPIRIT   OF  LIFE   IN   JESTJS   CHRIST. 


UNIVBRSIT 


Romans  vui.  2. 
the  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  in  jesus  christ. 

"  A  MAi^","  says  the  Apostle  Paul,  "  is  the  image  and  glory 
of  God."  And  truly,  it  is  from  our  own  human  nature, 
from  its  deep  experiences  and  earnest  affections,  that  we 
form  our  conceptions  of  Deity,  and  become  qualified  to 
interpret  the  solemn  intimations  which  creation  and  Script- 
ure afford  to  us  respecting  him.  Without  the  stirring  of 
divine  qualities  within  us,  without  some  consciousness  of 
that  which  we  ascribe  to  the  All-perfect,  the  names  and 
descriptions  by  which  he  is  made  known  to  us  would  be 
empty  words,  as  idly  sent  to  us  as  treatises  of  sound  to  the 
deaf,  or  some  "  high  discourse  of  reason  "  to*  the  fool.  All 
that  we  believe  without  us,  we  first  feel  within  us  ;  and  it  is 
the  one  sufficient  proof  of  the  grandeur  and  awfulness  of 
our  nature,  that  we  have  faith  in  God  ;  for  no  merely  finite 
being  can  possibly  believe  the  infinite.  The  universe  of 
which  each  man  conceives,  exists  primarily  in  his  own 
mind ;  there  dwell  the  angel  he  enthrones  in  the  height, 
and  the  demon  he  covers  with  the  deep  ;  and  vainly  would 
he  talk  of  shunning  hell,  who  never  felt  its  fires  in  his 
bosom;  or  he  converse  of  heaven,  whose  soul  was  never 
pure  and  green  as  Paradise. 

In  virtue  of  this  resemblance  between  the  human  and 

1 


Y,  THE  SPIKIT   OF  LIFE 

the  divine  mind,  Christ  is  the  representative  and  revealer  of 
both.  God,  by  the  very  immensity  of  his  nature,  is  a 'sta- 
tionary being, —  perfect,  and  therefore  unchangeable:  and 
so  far  as  Jesus  Christ  was  "  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and 
for  ever ;  "  so  far  as  one  uniform  mind  and  power  possessed 
him,  as  one  sacred  purpose  was  impressed  upon  his  life,  —  so 
far  is  he  the  emblem  of  Deity ;  affording  us,  in  speech,  in 
feeling,  in  will,  in  act,  an  idea  of  God,  which  nothing  bor- 
rowed from  the  material  creation  or  mortal  life  can  at  all 
approach.  His  unity  of  soul,  the  unalterable  spirit  pervad- 
ing all  his  altering  moods  of  thought,  —  in  short,  his  identity 
with  himself,  is  altogether  divine.  In  so  far,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  he  underwent  vicissitudes  of  emotion  ;  in  so  far  as 
he  spake,  thought,  acted  differently  in  different  periods  of 
his  career,  and  a  changed  hue  of  soul  came  over  him,  and 
threw  across  the  world  before  him  a  brighter  or  a  sadder 
shade,  —  so  far  is  he  the  ideal  and  picture  of  the  mind  of 
man.     His  self-variations  are  altogether  human. 

The  casual  vicissitudes  of  feeling  in  Christ,  his  alternations 
of  anxiety  and  hope,  of  rejoicing  and  of  tears,  have  often 
been  appealed  to,  as  traces  of  his  having  had  a  like  nature 
with  our  own.  The  appeal  is  just ;  and  shows  us  that  he 
was  impressed,  as  we  are,  by  those  outward  incidents  which 
may  make  the  morning  happy  and  the  evening  sad.  But 
besides  these  accidental  agitations,  which  follow  the  com- 
plexion of  our  external  lot,  there  is  a  far  more  important 
set  of  changes,  which  the  affections  and  character  undergo 
from  internal  causes  ;  which  occur  in  regular  succession, 
marking  and  characterizing  the  different  periods  of  mental, 
if  not  of  physical  life  ;  and  constitute  the  stages  of  moral 
development  through  which  the  noblest  minds  visibly  pass 
to  their  perfection.  The  incidental  fluctuations  of  emotion, 
raised  by  the  good  or  evil  tidings  of  the  hour,  are  but  as 
the  separate  waves  which  the  passing  wind  may  soothe  to  a 
ripple  or  press  into  a  storm :  but  the  seasonal  changes  of 
character,  of  which  I  now  speak,  are  rather  the  great  tidal 


IN   JESUS   CHRIST.  3 

movements  of  the  deep  within  us,  depending  on  less  capri- 
cious forces  than  the  transient  gale,  and  bearing  on  their 
surface  the  mere  film  of  tempest  or  of  calm.  The  succes- 
sion is  distinctly  traceable  in  the  mind  of  Christ,  making 
his  life  a  model  of  moral  progression  the  most  impressive 
and  sublime.  He  thus  becomes  in  a  new  sense  the  repre- 
sentative of  our  duty,  our  visible  and  outward  conscience  : 
revealing  to  us  not  only  the  end  to  which  we  must  attain, 
but  the  successive  steps  by  which  our  nature  reaches  it ;  the 
process  as  well  as  the  result;  the  natural  history  of  the 
affections  which  belong  to  the  true  perfection  of  the  will. 
He  is  the  type  of  the  pure  religious  life ;  all  its  develop- 
ments being  crowded,  by  the  rapid  ripening  of  his  soul,  into 
his  brief  experience:  and  we  read  in  the  gospel  a  divine 
allegory  of  humanity,  symbolical  of  those  profound  and 
silent  changes,  of  passion  and  speculation,  of  faith  and  love, 
through  which  a  holy  mind  rises  to  its  most  godlike  power. 

I  propose  to  follow  Jesus  through  the  several  periods,  so 
far  as  they  appear,  of  his  outward  and  inward  history  ;  and 
to  show  the  correspondence  between  their  order  and  the 
successive  stages  of  growth  in  a  religious  and  holy  soul. 

The  only  incident  recorded  of  the  childhood  of  Jesus 
strikingly  commences  the  analogy  between  his  nature  and 
ours,  and  happily  introduces  him  to  us  as  the  representative 
of  the  great  ideas  of  duty  and  God  within  the  soul.  The 
annual  pilgrimage  from  his  village  to  the  holy  city,  which 
had  hitherto  been  the  child's  holiday,  full  only  of  the  wonder 
and  delight  of  travel,  seized  hold,  on  one  occasion,  of  deeper 
feelings,  which  absorbed  him  with  their  new  intensity.  The 
visit  which  had  become  conventional  with  others  appeared 
at  once  with  its  full  meaning  to  him  :  and  with  the  surprise 
of  a  fresh  reverence  he  turned  from  the  gay  streets,  and  the 
sunny  excursion,  and  the  social  entertainment,  to  the  quiet 
courts  of  the  temple,  where  the  ancient  story  of  miracle  was 
told,  and  the  mystery  of  prophecy  explained.  Eager  to  pro- 
long this  new  and  solemn  interest,  he  missed,  you  will  re- 


4  THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

member,  the  opportunity  of  travelling  back  with  the  caravan 
of  Nazareth  :  and  when  told  by  his  parents,  on  their  return 
in  quest  of  him,  "  Thy  father  and  mother  have  sought  thee 
sorrowing,"  he  replied,  with  a  tone  not  altogether  filial, 
"  Know  ye  not  that  I  must  be  about  my  Father's  business  ?  " 
The  answer  is  wonderfully  expressive  of  the  spirit  of 
young  piety,  taking  its  first  dignity  as  an  independent  prin- 
ciple of  action  in  the  mind.  The  lessons  of  devotion  are, 
for  a  long  time,  adopted  passively,  with  listening  faith  ;  the 
great  ideas  dwindling,  as  they  fall  from  the  teacher's  lips, 
to  the  dimensions  of  the  infant  mind  receiving  them.  When 
the  mother  calls  her  children  to  her  knees  to  speak  to  them 
of  God,  she  is  herself  the  greatest  object  in  their  affections. 
It  is  by  her  power  over  them  that  God  becomes  Venerable  ; 
by  the  purity  of  her  eye  that  he  becomes  Holy  ;  by  the 
silence  of  the  hour  that  he  becomes  Awful  ;  by  the  tender- 
ness of  her  tones  that  he  becomes  Dear.  That  the  parents 
bend,  with  lowly  look  and  serene  result,  before  some  invisible 
Presence,  is  the  first  and  sufficient  hint  to  the  heart's  latent 
faith  ;  which  therefore  blends  awhile  with  the  domestic  sym- 
pathies, simply  mingling  with  them  an  element  of  mystery, 
and  imparting  to  tliem  a  deeper  and  less  earthy  coloring. 
But  the  thoughts  which  constitute  religion  are  too  vast  and 
solemn  to  remain  subordinate.  They  are  germs  of  a  growth, 
which,  with  true  nurture,  must  burst  into  independent  life, 
and  overshadow  the  whole  soul.  When  the  mind,  begin- 
ning to  be  busy  for  itself,  ponders  the  ideas  of  the  infinite 
and  eternal,  it  detects,  as  if  by  sudden  inspiration,  the 
immensity  of  the  relations  which  it  sustains  to  God  and 
immortality  :  the  old  formulas  of  religious  instruction  break 
their  husk,  and  give  forth  the  seeds  of  wonder  and  of  love  ; 
every  thing  that  before  seemed  great  and  worthy  is  dwarfed  ; 
and  human  affinities  and  duties  sink  into  nothingness  com- 
pared with  the  heavenly  world  which  has  been  discovered. 
There  is  a  period  when  earnest  spirits  become  thus  pos- 
sessed; disposed  to   contrast  the   grandeur   of  their   new 


IN  JESUS   CHRIST.  5 

ideal  with  the  littleness  of  all  that  is  actual ;  and  to  look 
with  a  sublimated  feeling,  which  in  harsher  natures  passes 
into  contempt,  on  pursuits  and  relations  once  sufficient  for 
the  heart's  reverence.  At  such  a  crisis  it  was  that  Jesus 
gave  the  answer  to  his  parents ;  when  his  piety  first  broke 
into  original  and  self-luminous  power,  and  not  only  took  the 
centre  of  his  system,  but  threatened  to  put  out  those  minor 
and  dependent  lights  which,  when  their  place  is  truly  under- 
stood, appear  no  less  heavenly.  He  spake  in  the  entranced 
and  exclusive  spirit  of  young  devotion.  Well  then  may  we 
bear  with  the  rebukes  which  this  earnest  temper  is  some- 
times impelled  to  administer  :  for,  by  a  mental  necessity,  all 
strong  feeling  must  be  exclusive,  till  wisdom  and  experience 
have  trained  it;  till  the  worth  of  many  things  has  been 
ascertained ;  till  God  is  seen,  not  sitting  aloof  from  his 
creation  to  show  how  contemptible  it  is,  but  pervading 
it  to  give  it  sanctity;  till  it  is  found  how  much  that  is 
human  is  also  divine.  None  learned  this  so  soon  or  so 
profoundly  as  Jesus.  And  even  now,  the  very  sight  of 
home  restored  his  household  sympathies  again  :  for  when 
he  went  to  Nazareth  with  his  parents,  "  he  was  obedient 
unto  them ;  and  increased  in  favor  "  with  "  man,"  as  well  as 
"God." 

Nearly  twenty  years  elapsed.  Boyhood  passed  without 
events.  The  slight  flush  of  the  youthful  soul  had  fled. 
Vainly  did  Mary  notice  how  a  light,  as  from  within,  came 
upon  his  features  as  he  bent  over  his  daily  toil,  or  forced 
him  to  pause,  as  if  in  some  secret  and  ineffable  colloquy. 
Though  the  life  of  God  within  him  was  strong  enough  to 
win  the  world,  and  give  direction  to  its  reverence  for  ever, 
he  was  a  villager  still,  serving  the  same  necessities,  and 
pacing  the  same  track  of  custom  as  others.  It  was  inevita- 
ble that  the  spiritual  force  within  him  should  make  insurrec- 
tion against  the  narrow  and  cramping  conditions  by  which 
it  was  confined ;  that  it  should  strive  to  burst  its  fetters, 
and  find  or  create  a  career  worthy  of  itself :  in  short,  that 


6  THE   SPIRIT   OF  LIFE 

we  should  find  Jesus  no  longer  at  Nazareth,  but  in  the  wil- 
derness; led  thither,  in  spite  of  himself,  of  interest  and 
comfort,  of  habit  and  home,  by  the  beckoning  of  the  divine 
image  in  liis  heart.  That  solitude  he  was  impelled  to  seek, 
that  he  might  grapple  face  to  face  with  the  evil  and  earthly 
spirits  that  beset  our  path,  disengage  himself  from  the 
encumbrances  of  usage  and  of  doubt,  and  struggle  into  a 
life  befitting  one  who  stands  in  immensity  and  dwells  with 
God.  To  the  eye  of  the  outward  observer  he  may  appear 
altogether  quiet,  sitting  on  the  bleak  rock  in  the  collapse  of 
feebleness  and  rest.  Nevertheless,  in  that  still  form  is  the 
most  terrible  of  conflicts ;  an  exchange  of  awful  defiances 
between  heaven  and  hell ;  a  heaving  and  wrestling  of 
immortal  powers,  doing  battle  for  the  mind  of  Jesus,  and 
suspending  on  that  moment  the  souls  of  millions  and  the 
destinies  of  the  world.  His  holy  spirit  won  the  victory ; 
the  angels  of  peace  and  power  led  him  forth ;  and  the 
transition  was  made  from  the  obscurity  of  ordinary  toil  to 
the  glory  of  his  everlasting  ministry. 

Now  in  the  development  of  all  earnest  and  noble  minds 
there  is  a  passage  corresponding  with  this  scene.  There 
is  a  time  when  their  image  of  duty  grows  too  large  for  the 
accidental  lot  in  which  it  is  encased,  and  seeks  to  burst  it ; 
when  human  life  changes  its  aspect  before  the  eye ;  and 
custom  can  no  longer  show  it  to  us  as  a  flat  dull  field,  where 
we  may  plough  and  build  and  find  shelter  and  sleep ;  but 
it  swells  into  verdant  slopes  around  the  base  of  everlasting 
hills,  whose  summit  no  man  can  discern,  passing  away  as  a 
dim  shape  into  the  blue  infinite  above  the  lingering  clouds. 
There  is  a  crisis  when  every  faithful  son  of  God  is  agitated 
by  a  fierce  controversy  between  the  earthly  and  the  divine 
elements  of  his  nature.  Self  and  the  flesh  seductively 
whisper,  "  Thou  hast  a  life  of  many  necessities ;  eani  thy 
bread  and  eat  it ;  and  pay  thyself  for  all  thy  trouble  with  a 
warm  hearth  and  a  soft  bed."  •The  voice  of  God  thunders 
in  reply,  "  Thy  life  is  short,  thy  work  is  great,  thy  God  is 


IN   JESUS   CHRIST.  7 

near,  thy  heaven  is  far ;  do  I  not  send  thee  forth,  armed 
with  thought  and  speech,  and  a  strong  right  hand,  to  con- 
tend with  the  evil  and  avenge  the  good  ?  Indulge  no  more, 
or  I  shall  leave  thee  :  do  thy  best,  and  faint  not :  take  up 
thy  free-will,  and  come  with  me."  By  some  such  conflict 
does  every  great  mind  quit  its  ease  to  serve  its  responsibili- 
ties ;  part,  if  need  be,  with  the  sympathy  of  friends  and  the 
security  of  neighborhood,  in  fidelity  to  duty ;  and  suffer 
wasting  and  loneliness,  as  in  the  bleakest  desert,  till  tempta- 
tion be  vanquished,  and  hesitancy  flung  aside. 

The  course  of  Jesus  was  now  taken.  The  peasant  had 
assumed  the  prophet's  mantle  and  Messiah's  power.  How 
calm  and  free  his  mind  had  thus  become,  how  unembar- 
rassed it  dwelt  in  the  pure  atmosphere  of  its  own  convic- 
tions, is  evident  from  this,  that  to  his  own  village  he  went 
and  announced  the  change.  In  the  very  synagogue  where 
parents  and  neighbors  worshipped,  and  aged  knees  to  which 
he  had  clung  in  infant  sport  were  bent  in  prayer ;  where  his 
ear  had  first  heard  the  music,  and  his  soul  felt  the  sublimity 
of  ancient  prophecy, —  there  "  He  opened  the  book,  and  found 
the  place  where  it  was  written,  '  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is 
upon  me,  because  he  hath  anointed  me  to  preach  glad  tid- 
ings to  the  poor  :  he  hath  sent  me  to  proclaim  liberty  to  the 
captives,  and  recovery  of  sight  to  the  blind ;  to  let  the  op- 
pressed go  free,  to  proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord.'" 
No  wonder  that  as  he  spake  in  comment  worthy  of  such  a 
text,  his  hearers  "were  astonished  at  the  gracious  words 
that  proceeded  from  his  lips."  The  moment  introduced,  and 
fitly  represents,  the  first  era  of  his  ministry  ;  during  the 
whole  of  which  a  joyous  inspiration  was  on  him.  No  sad 
forebodings  visited  him  :  no  doubts  restrained  his  freedom : 
no  tears  gushed  forth  to  check  his  voice  of  mercy  and  delay 
his  word  of  power.  It  was  a  hopeful  and  vigorous  career ; 
crowded  with  blessed  deeds,  and  flushed  with  countless 
benedictions  that  only  kindled  him  to  an  alacrity  more  god- 
like.    Nay,  it  seemed  impossible  for  him  to  bear  his  own 


8  THE   SPIRIT  OF  LIFE 

messages  of  love  fast  enough  :  and  first  the  Twelve,  and 
then  the  Seventy,  were  sent  successively  forth  on  a  sys- 
tematic mission,  to  multiply  his  power,  and  make  ready  the 
paths  of  peace.  The  report  of  the  Seventy,  on  their  return, 
declares  the  triumph  of  his  name  and  spirit,  not  only  in  the 
conquest  of  disease,  but  in  the  attachment  of  the  poor  and 
the  oppressed  ;  and  with  the  glow  of  glad  devotion  that 
marks  this  period  Jesus  exclaimed,  "  I  beheld  Satan,  as 
lightning,  fall  from  heaven."  The  Twelve  brought  far  differ- 
ent tidings,  which  changed  again  the  colors  of  his  life. 

Who  does  not  discern,  in  the  history  of  every  faithful 
mind,  a  period  like  this  ?  —  a  period  immediately  following 
the  solemn  league  and  covenant  which  we  make  with  duty. 
Through  sore  and  dark  temptations  the  Christian  first 
emerges  into  the  free-will,  by  which  he  stands  up  and  lives 
in  the  likeness  of  God  ;  and  then,  in  the  joy  of  his  freedom 
and  sincerity,  he  springs,  with  self-precipitation,  into  the 
mission  Heaven  assigns.  That  which  he  speaks  —  is  it  not 
true  ?  that  which  he  feels  is  holy  ;  that  which  he  desires  is 
great  and  good.  He  loves  the  souls  he  would  convert,  and 
knows  them  of  the  same  family  with  his  own.  He  has  con- 
quered in  himself  the  weakness  and  the  ills  with  which  he 
wars  in  others ;  and  shall  he  not  have  faith  ?  God  is  vaster 
than  the  most  gigantic  wrongs ;  and  His  righteousness, 
which  is  as  the  great  mountains,  will  speedily  suppress  them 
in  the  abyss.  In  the  power  of  this  glorious  faith,  the  true 
servant  and  prophet  of  the  Lord  goes  forth ;  makes  a  gen- 
erous and  confident  rush  upon  evil ;  and  —  since  it  is  the 
immortal  against  the  perishable  —  he  trusts  to  sweep  it  off 
and  triumph  in  its  flight.  But,  alas !  the  time  is  short,  the 
conflict  long;  and,  faint  and  bleeding,  he  discovers  that  he 
must  fall,  before  the  cry  of  victory.  And  yet  was  that  faith 
of  his  most  true.  Its  computation  of  forces  was  most  un- 
erring, for  always  shall  evil  be  overcome  by  good,  —  with 
mistake,  you  will  say,  in  its  dates ;  but  that  is  only  the 
prophet's  mistake,  that  sees  the  future  as  the  present,  and 


IN  JESUS   CHRIST.  9 

considers  the  certainties  of  God  superior  to  time.  This 
right-souled  man  has  uplifted  his  arm,  and  done  a  faithful 
work  :  and  the  efforts  of  the  wise  and  holy  are  not  mere 
momentary  strokes  dissipated  and  lost ;  but  an  everlasting 
pressure  upon  ill,  with  tension  increasing  without  end,  till  it 
drives  the  monstrous  mass  across  the  brink  of  annihilation. 

Sad,  however,  is  the  hour  when  generous  hope  receives  its 
first  check;  and  with  mournful  attention  Jesus  hears,  on 
the  return  of  the  Twelve,  tidings  of  hostility  and  danger, 
forcing  on  him  the  conviction  that  he  must  die ;  tidings 
especially  of  the  vigilance  of  Herod,  recent  murderer  of 
John  the  Baptist.  The  shock  was  somewhat  sudden.  He 
retreated  into  solitude  among  the  hills,  that  he  might  feel 
awhile  without  obstruction  the  refuge  of  his  disciples' 
friendship  and  his  Father's  power.  And  soon  in  the  Trans- 
figuration, where  his  mind  conversed  with  prophets  of  an 
elder  age,  the  impression  of  his  decease  as  the  penalty  of  his 
faithfulness  becomes  finally  fixed.  Thenceforth,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  not  only  did  his  views  and  expectations  undergo  a 
great  change  and  receive  a  large  accession  of  truth,  but  the 
spirit  and  moral  tone  of  his  ministry  was  different.  Stead- 
fast as  before,  even  to  "  set  his  face  to  go  to  Jerusalem,"  he 
is  less  joyous  and  more  serene  ;  more  earnest  and  lofty,  as 
if  his  great  aims  had  become  sublimer  for  the  distance  to 
which  they  had  receded,  and  dearer  for  the  price  at  which 
they  must  be  gained  ;  more  prone  to  tears,  when  asked  for 
by  the  griefs  of  others,  more  driven  to  prayer  in  wrestling 
with  his  own.  If  his  deeds  of  power  —  which  by  their 
nature  must  be  self-repetitions  —  are  less  frequent,  he  gives 
himself  more  to  speech,  varying  ever  those  words  of  eternal 
life  from  which  all  ages  learn  divinest  wisdom.  And  so  he 
passes  on  to  his  crucifixion  :  numbering  the  days  only  by 
the  duties  that  remain  ;  devoting  himself  to  the  crowds^  of 
Jerusalem  by  day,  and  to  the  family  of  Bethany  at  even  ;  in 
the  morning  teaching  in  the  temple,  and  predicting  its  fall 
at   night ;  blessing  the  widow's   charity,  laying  bare   the 


10  THE  SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

priest's  hypocrisy;  found  by  his  conspirators  at  midnight 
prayer  ;  in  the  trial,  concerned  for  Peter ;  in  the  hall,  con- 
vulsing the  conscience  of  Pilate ;  on  the  fatal  road,  turning 
with  pity  to  the  daughters  of  Jerusalem  ;  and  not  exclaim- 
ing, '^  It  is  finished,"  till  from  the  cross  he  looked  on  a 
mother  for  whom  he  found  a  home,  and  a  disciple  whom  he 
made  blessed  by  his  trust. 

And  even  this  last  change  in  Christ  appears  to  be  not  a 
mere  external  modification,  but  an  internal  ripening  of  his 
perfect  character,  the  last  unfolding  of  its  progressive 
beauty :  to  which  also  there  is  a  corresponding  stage, 
wherever  the  true  religious  life  fulfils  its  course.  When 
the  first  sanguine  enterprises  of  conscience  seem  to  fail 
(though  fail  they  cannot,  except  to  live  as  fast  as  our  impa- 
tient fancies)  ;  when  a  cloud,  like  that  which  fell  upon 
Christ's  future,  descends  upon  the  prospects  of  the  good ; 
when  the  evils  against  which  he  has  taken  up  his  vow,  with- 
stand the  siege  of  his  enthusiasm,  and  years  ebb  away,  and 
strength  departs,  with  no  visible  impression  made ;  and 
friends  become  treacherous,  and  foes  alert,  and  God's  good 
providence  seems  tedious  and  cruel,  —  then  weak  spirits 
may  succumb,  able  to  keep  faith  alive  no  more  ;  and  even 
the  man  mighty  of  heart  may  find  the  controversy  great, 
whether  to  go  on  and  bear  up  against  such  sorrow  of  the 
soul.  But  if  he  be  wise,  he  clings  more  firmly  to  his  fidelity, 
and  thinks  more  truly  of  his  mission,  wherein  he  is  appointed 
not  to  do  much,  but  to  do  well.  He  too  takes  counsel  of 
the  prophets  of  old,  —  the  sainted  spirits  of  the  good,  who 
rebuke  his  impatience,  and  tell  him  that  they  followed  each 
other  at  intervals  of  centuries,  and,  as  they  found,  so  after 
true  service  still  left, the  mighty  work  of  good  undone  j  that 
the  fruits  of  heaven  will  not  ripen  in  some  sunny  hour,  but 
every  noble  mind  must  lend  its  transitory  ray :  and  then, 
when  the  full  year  of  Pi-ovidence  has  gone  its  round,  per- 
chance the  collective  sunshine  of  humanity  may  have 
matured  the  produce  of  the  tree  of  life.     Such  communion 


IN   JESUS    CHRIST.  11 

does  indeed  speak  to  him  of  his  "  decease  which  he  must 
accomplish  ; "  asks  him  to  join  the  glorious  succession  of  the 
good ;  sends  him  with  transfigured  spirit  back  into  the 
field  of  duty ;  gives  him  a  sadder  but  more  enduring  wis- 
dom, by  which,  with  or  without  hope,  in  or  out  of  peril,  he 
lives  and  labors  on ;  renouncing  power  and  success,  yet 
winning  their  divinest  forms ;  and  through  self-crucifixion 
gifted  with  immortality. 


II. 

THE    BESETTING   GOD. 


Psalm  cxxxix.  6. 
thou  habt  beset  mb  behind  and  befobe,  and  laid  thine  hani) 

UPON    ME. 

Perhaps  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  represent  God  to  our 
minds  under  any  greater  physical  image  than  that  of  his 
diffused  presence  through  every  region  of  space.  Certainly, 
to  feel  that  He  lives,  as  the  percipient  and  determining 
agent  throughout  the  universe,  conscious  of  all  things  actual 
or  possible  from  the  vivid  centre  to  the  desert  margin  of  its 
sphere,  excluded  from  neither  air,  nor  earth,  nor  sea,  nor 
souls,  but  clad  with  them  as  a  vestment,  and  gathering  up 
their  laws  within  his  being,  is  a  sublimer  and  therefore  a 
truer  mode  of  thought,  than  the  conception  of  a  remote  and 
retired  mechanician,  inspecting  from  without  the  engine  of 
creation  to  see  how  it  performs.  Indeed,  this  mechanical 
metaphor,  so  skilfully  elaborated  by  Paley,  appears  to  be, 
of  all  representations  of  the  divine  nature,  the  least  relig- 
ious; its  very  clearness  proclaiming  its  insufficiency  for 
those  affections  which  seek  not  the  finite,  but  the  infinite  ; 
its  coldness  repelling  all  emotions,  and  reducing  them  to 
physiological  admiration ;  and  its  scientific  procedure  pre- 
senting the  Creator  to  us  in  a  relation  quite  too  mean,  as 
one  of  the  causes  in  creation,  to  whom  a  chapter  might  be 
devoted  in  any  treatise  on  dynamics,  and  on  evidence  quite 
below  the  real,  as  a  highly  probable  God.  The  true  natural 
language  of  devotion  speaks  out  rather  in  the  poetry  of  the 


THE   BESETTING  GOD.  13 

Psalmist  and  the  prayers  of  Christ ;  declares  the  living 
contact  of  the  Divine  Spirit  with  the  human,  the  mystic 
implication  of  his  nature  with  ours,  and  ours  with  his  ; 
his  serenity  amid  our  griefs,  his  sanctity  amid  our  guilt, 
his  wakefulness  in  our  sleep,  his  life  through  our  death,  liis 
silence  amid  our  stormy  force;  and  refers  to  him  as  the 
absolute  basis  of  all  relative  existence  ;  all  else  being  in 
comparison  but  phantasm  and  shadow,  and  He  alone  the 
real  and  essential  Life. 

Were  we  to  insist  on  philosophical  correctness  of  speech 
in  matters  transcending  all  our  modes  of  definition,  we 
should  reject,  as  irrational  and  in  truth  unmeaning,  the 
question  respecting  any  spiritual  being,  '•^ where  is  he?" 
Local  position,  physical  presence,  is  a  relation  of  material 
things,  and  cannot  be  affirmed  of  mind  without  confounding 
it  with  body.  Thought,  will,  love,  which  have  no  size  and 
take  up  no  space,  can  be  in  no  spot,  and  move  to  none ;  and 
to  the  souls  of  which  these  are  attributes  we  can  ascribe 
neither  habitation  nor  locomotion.  It  is  only  the  bodily 
effects  and  outward  manifestations  of  mental  force,  —  the 
gestures  of  the  visible  frame  and  the  actions  of  the  solid 
limbs,  — to  which  place  can  be  assigned  :  and  when  we  say 
that  we  are  here  and  not  there,  it  is  to  this  organic  system 
connected  with  our  spiritual  nature,  and  to  this  alone  that 
we  refer.  "Were  we  to  press  the  notion  further,  and  en- 
deavor to  settle  the  question  where  our  minds  are,  the 
intrinsic  impropriety  of  the  question  would  leave  us  alto- 
gether at  a  loss.  There  would  be  no  more  reason  to  attrib- 
ute to  the  soul  a  residence  within  the  body,  than  in  the 
remotest  station  of  the  universe  ;  for  God  could  as  well 
establish  a  constant  relation  between  the  mind  and  the 
organism  on  which  it  was  to  act,  at  a  distance  thus  vast, 
as  in  the  nearest  proximity :  and  there  would  be  no  more 
wonder  in  the  movement  of  my  arm  on  earth  complying 
with  my  will  at  the  confines  of  the  solar  system,  than  in  the 
constant  rush  of  our  world  on  its  career,  in  obedience  to  a 


14  THE   BESETTING   GOD. 

sun  separated  by  distance  so  immense.  It  may  be,  after  all, 
but  figuratively  that  we  speak  of  any  migration  of  the  soul 
in  death.  When  the  body  appropriated  to  it  as  its  instru- 
ment and  expression  falls,  we  cannot  say  that  the  mind  is 
here ;  we  dream  of  what  we  know  not,  if  we  fancy  it  to 
require  removal  in  order  to  present  itself  manifestly  in 
a  higher  region.  One  order  of  physical  relations  being 
dropped  here,  another  may  on  the  instant  be  assumed  else- 
where, revealing  the  spirit  to  a  new  society,  and  giving  it 
the  apparition  of  fresh  worlds. 

If  we  are  unable  to  speak, otherwise  than  in  figures, of  the 
place  of  our  own  minds,  it  is  not  surprising  that  God's  pres- 
ence is  quite  ineffable,  and  that  we  bow  with  reverent  assent 
to  the  poet's  admission,  "  such  knowledge  is  too  wonderful 
for  me."  But  the  confession  of  our  ignorance  once  made, 
we  may  proceed  to  use  such  poor  thought  and  language  as 
we  find  least  unsuitable  to  so  high  a  matter ;  for  it  is  the 
essence  and  beginning  of  religion  to  feel  that  all  our  belief 
and  speech  respecting  God  is  untrue,  yet  infinitely  truer 
than  any  non-belief  and  silence.  In  whatever  sense,  then, 
and  on  whatever  grounds,  we  affirm  the  tenancy  of  our  own 
frame  by  the  soul  that  governs  it,  must  we  fill  the  universe 
with  the  everlasting  Spirit  of  whose  thought  it  is  the  develop- 
ment. His  agency  is  all-comprehending,  and  declares  itself 
alike  before  us,  from  whichever  side  of  the  world's  orbit, 
from  whichever  phase  of  life  we  survey  the  spectacle  of  the 
heavens  or  the  phenomena  of  human  history ;  nor  can  we 
help  regarding  the  physical  laws  of  creation  (the  same  in 
all  worlds)  as  his  personal  habits ;  the  moral  order  of  Provi- 
dence as  the  unfolding  of  his  character,  the  forms  and  flush 
of  the  universal  beauty  as  the  effusion  of  his  art ;  the  griefs 
and  joys,  the  temptations,  lapses,  and  triumphs,  and  all  the 
glorious  strife  of  responsible  natures,  as  the  energy  of  his 
moral  sentiments,  and  his  profuse  donation  of  a  divine  free- 
will. It  is  true  we  do  not  everywhere  alike  discern  him  ; 
but  this  is  our  blindness  and  not  his  darkness.     In  the  nar- 


THE  BESETTING   GOD.  16 

row  ways  of  common  life,  amid  the  din  of  labor  and  traffic, 
he  seems  to  pass  away ;  though  it  were  well  that  his  sanc- 
tity should  be  nigh,  to  cool  the  heats  and  guard  the  purity 
of  our  toiling  and  tempted  hours.  But  we  acknowledge 
space  and  silence  to  be  his  attributes ;  and  when  the  even- 
ing dew  has  laid  the  noon-day  dust  of  care,  and  the  vision 
strained  by  microscopic  anxieties  takes  the  wide  sweep  of 
meditation,  and  earth  sleeps  as  a  desert  beneath  the  starry 
infinite,  the  unspeakable  Presence  wraps  us  close  again,  and 
startles  us  in  the  wild  night-wind,  and  gazes  straight  into 
our  eyes  from  those  ancient  lights  of  heaven. 

And  to  the  same  Omnipresence  which  the  individual 
thinker  thus  consciously  realizes,  the  collective  race  of  men 
is  perpetually  bearing  an  unconscious  testimony.  As  if  in 
acknowledgment  of  the  mystery  of  God,  as  if  with  an  in- 
stinctive feeling  that  his  being  is  the  meeting-place  of  light 
and  shade,  and  that  in  approaching  him  we  must  stand  on 
the  confines  between  the  seen  and  the  unseen ;  all  nations 
and  all  faiths  of  cultivated  men  have  chosen  the  twilight 
hour,  morning  and  evening,  for  their  devotion ;  and  so 
it  has  happened,  that  all  round  the  earth  on  the  border- 
ing circle  between  the  darkness  and  the  day,  a  zone  of 
worshippers  has  been  ever  spread,  looking  forth  for  the 
Almighty  Tenant  of  space,  one-half  towards  the  east,  brill- 
iant with  the  dawn,  the  other  into  the  hemisphere  of  night, 
descending  on  the  west.  The  veil  of  shadow,  as  it  shifts, 
has  glanced  upon  adoring  souls,  and  by  its  touch  cast  down 
a  fresh  multitude  to  kneel ;  and  as  they  have  gazed  into 
opposite  regions  for  their  God,  they  have  virtually  owned 
his  presence  "  besetting  them  behind  and  before."  Our 
planet,  thus  instinct  with  devout  life,  girded  with  intent 
and  perceptive  souls,  covered  over,  as  with  a  divine  retina, 
by  the  purer  conscience  of  humanity,  is  like  a  living  eye, 
watching  on  every  side  the  immensity  of  Deity  in  which  it 
floats,  and  grateful  for  the  rays  that  relieve  its  native  gloom. 
We  sometimes  complain  of  the  conditions  of  our  being  as 


16  THE  BESETTING  GO^D. 

unfavorable  to  the  discernment  and  the  love  of  God ;  we 
speak  of  him  as  veiled  from  us  by  our  senses,  and  of  the 
world  as  the  outer  region  of  exile  from  which  he  is  pecu- 
liarly hid.  In  imagining  what  is  holy  and  divine,  we  take 
flight  to  other  worlds,  and  conceive  that  there  the  film  must 
fall  away,  and  all  adorable  realities  burst  upon  the  sight. 
Alas !  what  reason  have  we  to  think  any  other  station  in 
the  universe  more  sanctifying  than  our  own  ?  There  is 
none,  so  far  as  we  can  tell,  under  the  more  immediate  touch 
of  God;  none  whence  sublimer  deeps  are  open  to  adora- 
tion ;  none  murmuring  with  the  whisper  of  more  thrilling 
affections,  or  ennobled  as  the  theatre  of  more  glorious 
duties.  The  dimness  we  deplore,no  travelling  would  cure ; 
the  most  perfect  of  observatories  will  not  serve  the  blind  ; 
we  carry  our  darkness  with  us ;  and  instead  of  wandering 
to  fresh  scenes,  and  blaming  our  planetary  atmosphere,  and 
flying  over  creation  for  a  purer  air,  it  behooves  us  in  simple 
faith  to  sit  by  our  own  wayside  and  cry,  "  Lord,  that  we 
may  receive  our  sight."  The  Psalmist  found  no  fault  with 
this  world  as  setting  God  beyond  his  reach  ;  but  having  the 
full  eye  of  his  affections  opened  in  perpetual  vigil,  he  rather 
was  haunted  by  the  Omniscient  more  awfully  than  he  could 
well  bear,  and  would  fain  have  found  some  shade,  though  it 
were  in  darkness  or  the  grave,  from  a  presence  so  piercing 
and  a  light  so  clear.  Those  to  whom  the  earth  is  not  conse- 
crated will  find  their  heaven  profane. 

God  "  besets  us  behind  and  before "  in  another  sense. 
He  pervades  the  successions  of  time  as  well  as  the  fields  of 
space,  and  occupies  eternity  no  less  than  immensity.  The 
imagination  faints  beneath  the  weight  of  ages  which  crowd 
upon  it  in  the  simplest  meditation  on  his  being,  and  in  the 
utterance  of  the  most  familiar  of  our  prayers.  "We  call  him 
the  "  God  of  our  fathers  ;'*''  and  we  feel  that  there  is  some 
stability  at  centre,  while  we  can  tell  our  cares  to  One  listen- 
ing at  our  right  hand,  by  whom  theirs  are  remembered  and 
were  removed ;  who  yesterday  took  pity  on  their  quaint 


THE   BESETTING   GOD.  17 

perplexities,  and  smiles  to-day  on  ours,  not  wiser  yet,  but 
just  as  bitter  and  as  real ;  and  who  accepts  their  strains  of 
happy  and  emancipated  love,  while  putting  into  our  hearts 
the  song  of  exile  and  the  plaint  of  aspiration.  We  invoke 
him  as  the  "  God  of  Jesus  ;  "  and  so  doing  we  have  contact 
with  a  Mind  yet  conscious  of  every  scene  in  the  tragedy  of 
Palestine,  wherein  the  shadows  of  the  lake-storm  are  unef- 
faced,  and  the  cry  of  the  Crucifixion  is  ringing  still.  We 
speak  to  him  as  the  "  Ancient  of  days ;  "  and  so  converse 
with  One  who  feels  not  the  gradations  of  intensity  that 
make  difference  to  us  between  the  present  and  past,  with 
a  consciousness  that  has  no  perspective  ;  and  we  rest  on  the 
surface  of  an  unfathomable  nature,  comprising  without  con- 
fusion the  undulation  of  all  events,  be  it  the  tidal  sweep  of 
centuries,  or  the  surges  of  a  nation's  rage,  or  the  small  and 
vivid  ripplings  of  private  grief.  Nay,  we  pray  to  him  as 
having  abode  "  in  heaven  /  "  and  we  cannot  lift  our  eye  to 
that  pure  vault  without  thinking  how  old  are  those  stars 
amid  which  our  imagination  enspheres  him ;  how  they 
watched  over  patriarchs  in  the  plain  of  Mamre,  and  paced 
the  night  in  the  same  order  and  with  like  speed  as  yester- 
day ;  how  they  were  ready  there  to  meet  the  first  human 
sight  that  was  turned  aloft  to  gaze ;  and  witnessed  those 
primeval  revolutions  that,  having  prepared  the  earth  for 
man,  left  their  grotesque  and  gigantic  vestiges  as  hiero- 
glyphic hints  to  carry  him  back  into  the  waste  places  of 
eternity,  and  measure  for  him  God's  most  recent  step  out 
of  the  everlasting.  How  do  the  most  vehement  forms  of  his- 
tory, the  tempestuous  minds  that  from  any  other  point  of 
view  would  terrify  us  by  their  might,  —  the  savage  hordes 
that  have  swept  as  a  whirlwind  over  the  patient  structure 
of  civilization,  —  how  do  they  all,  in  this  contemplation, 
dwindle  into  momentary  shapes,  angel  or  demon  spectres, 
vividly  visible  and  suddenly  submerged!  By  the  granite 
pillars  of  God's  eternity,  deep-rooted  in  the  abyss,  we  all  in 
turn  climb  to  the  surface  for  a  moment,  to  slip  again  into 


18  THE   BESETTING   GOD. 

the  night.  But  during  the  moment  we  are  there,  if  we  use 
that  moment  well,  we  all  see  the  same  presence  ;  turning 
this  way  and  that,  we  perceive  only  that  he  "besets  us 
behind  and  before."  The  Psalmist  came  up  at  a  very  dif- 
ferent point  of  eternity  from  ourselves  ;  and  as  he  looked 
fore  and  aft  he  could  see  only  God.  We,  who  are  pre- 
sented at  a  station  where  the  Hebrew  poet  himself  is  quite 
invisible,  discern  on  every  side  the  same  immensity  which 
he  adored.  Well  may  we  fall  down  and  worship  with 
every  creature,  "  Great  and  marvellous  are  thy  works, 
O  Lord  God  Almighty !  who  art,  and  wast,  and  art  to 
come." 

There  is  yet  another  sense  in  which  we  must  confess  that 
God  "  besets  us  behind  and  before."  His  physical  agency 
in  all  places  is  a  great  and  solemn  certainty ;  his  ceaseless 
energy  through  all  time  presents  us  with  sublimer  thoughts ; 
but  there  is  a  moral  presence  of  his  Spirit  to  our  minds, 
which  places  us  in  relations  to  him  more  intimate  and  sacred. 
Surely  there  occur  to  every  uncorrupted  heart  some  stirrings 
of  a  diviner  life ;  some  consciousness,  obscure  and  transient 
it  may  be,  but  deep  and  authoritative,  of  a  nobler  calling 
than  we  have  yet  obeyed ;  a  rooted  dissatisfaction  with  self, 
a  suspicion  of  some  poison  in  the  will,  a  helpless  veneration 
for  somewhat  that  is  gazed  at  with  a  sigh  as  out  of  reach. 
It  is  the  touch  of  God  upon  us ;  his  heavy  hand  laid  upon 
our  conscience,  and  felt  by  all  who  are  not  numb  with  the 
paralytic  twist  of  sin.  Even  the  languid  mind  of  self-indul- 
gence, drowsy  with  too  much  sense,  complacent  with  too 
much  self,  scarcely  escapes  the  sacred  warning.  For  though 
it  is  quite  possible  that  such  a  one  may  have  no  compunctions 
in  the  retrospect  which  he  takes  from  the  observatory  not 
of  conscience  but  of  comfort ;  though  he  may  even  have 
lapsed  from  all  knowledge  of  remorse,  so  that  God  has  ceased 
to  "  beset  him  from  hehind^''  —  yet  the  future  is  not  securely 
shut  against  contingencies ;  and  a  moment  of  alarm,  a  shock 
of  death,  a  night  of  misery,  may  burst  the  guilty  slumber, 


THE   BESETTING    GOD.  19 

and  wake  the  poor  mortal,  as  on  a  morning  breaking  in 
tempest,  with  the  flash  of  conviction.  Behold !  'tis  God ! 
To  most,  I  believe,  there  comes  at  least  the  casual  misgiv- 
ing that  there  is  a  destiny  in  reserve  for  them  to  which  no 
justice  of  the  heart  has  yet  been  done  ;  and  to  each,  there 
is  the  anticipated  crumbling  away  of  all  his  solid  ground  in 
death ;  which  even  to  the  sternest  unbelief  is  a  lapsing  into 
the  dark  grasp  of  an  annihilating  God.  So  that  the  Almighty 
Spirit  besets  even  these  most  lonely  of  his  children  "/rom 
'before^''  And  as  for  minds  that  are  awake  and  at  all  in 
quest  of  him,  he  haunts  them  every  way.  Oh  that  we  could 
but  know  how  false  it  is  that  "  the  good  man  is  satisfied  from 
himself  "  !  When  was  there  ever  one  of  us  who  did  not  feel 
his  recollections  full  of  shame  and  grief,  and  find  in  the  past 
the  cup  that  overflowed  with  tears?  When,  one  that  did 
not  look  into  the  future  with  resolves  made  timid  and  anx- 
ious by  the  failures  of  experience,  and  distrust  that  breaks 
the  high  young  courage  of  the  heart,  and  prayers  that  in 
utterance  half  expect  refusal  ?  Which  of  us  can  stand  this 
day  at  the  solemn  meeting-point  of  past  and  future,  with- 
out abasement  for  the  one,  and  trembling  for  the  other?  — 
without  being  beset  by  the  Divine  Spirit  in  penitent  regrets 
from  behind,  and  in  passionate  aspirations  from  before  ? 
And  herein  we  should  discover  only  this ;  that  he  has  laid 
his  hand  upon  us,  —  has  resolved  to  claim  us. to  the  utter- 
most, and  will  haunt  us  with  his  rebukes,  though  they 
wither  us  with  sorrow,  till  we  surrender  without  terms. 

It  is  not  apparently  the  design  of  Heaven  that  we  should 
be  permitted  to  seek  rest  and  to  desire  ease  in  this  aspiring 
life  ;  and  it  is  the  vain  attempt  to  make  compromise  between 
duty  and  indulgence,  that  creates  the  corrosions  of  conscience, 
and  the  perpetual  disquietudes  of  spirit,  and  disappoints  our 
own  ideal  from  day  to  day  and  from  year  to  year.  There 
is  no  way  to  the  peace  of  God  but  by  absolute  self-abandon- 
ment to  his  will  that  whispers  within  us,  without  reservation 
of  happiness  or  self.     Then,  the  relinquishment  once  made, 


20  THE  BESETTING  GOD. 

^our  whole  nature  given  up  to  any  high  faith  within  the 
heart,  —  the  sorrows  of  mortality,  its  reproaches,  its  fears, 
will  soon  vanish,  and  even  death  be  robbed  of  its  terrors ; 
for,  to  quote  the  noble  words  of  Lord  Bacon,  "  He  that  dies 
in  an  earnest  pursuit  is  like  one  that  is  wounded  in  hot  blood, 
who  for  the  time  scarce  feels  the  hurt ;  and  therefore  a  mind 
fixed  and  bent  upon  somewhat  that  is  good,  doth  best  avert 
the  dolors  of  death." 


III. 

GREAT  PRINCIPLES  AND  SMALL  DUTIES. 

John  xiii.  14. 

if  i  then,  tour  lord  and  master,  have  washed  your  feet,  te  ought 
also  to  wash  one  another's  feet. 

Every  fiction  that  has  ever  laid  strong  hold  on  human  belief 
is  the  mistaken  image  of  some  great  truth ;  to  which  reason 
will  direct  its  search,  while  half- reason  is  content  with 
laughing  at  the  superstition,  and  unreason  with  believing  it. 
Thus,  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  faithfully  represents 
the  impression  produced  by  the  ministry  and  character  of 
Christ.  It  is  the  dark  shadow  thrown  across  the  ages  of 
Christendom  by  his  mortal  life,  as  it  inevitably  sinks  into 
the  distance.  It  is  but  the  too  literal  description  of  the 
real  elements  of  his  history ;  a  mistake  of  the  morally  for 
the  physically  divine ;  a  reference  to  celestial  descent  of 
that  majesty  of  soul  which,  even  in  the  eclipse  of  grief, 
seemed  too  great  for  any  meaner  origin.  Indeed,  how 
better  could  we  speak  of  the  life  of  Jesus  than  in  the  lan- 
guage of  this  doctrine,  as  the  submission  of  a  most  heavenly 
spirit  to  the  severest  burden  of  the  flesh,  —  the  voluntary 
immersion  within  the  shades  of  deep  suffering  of  a  godlike 
mind,  visibly  radiant  with  light  unknown  to  others,  and 
betraying  its  relation  to  eternity,  while  making  the  weary 
pilgrimage  of  time  ?  It  was  the  peculiarity  of  his  greatness 
that  it  —  stooped,  I  will  not  say,  but  —  penetrated  without 
stooping,  to  the  humblest  wants ;  not  simply  stepped  casu- 
ally aside  to  look  at  the  most  ignominious  sorrows,  but  went 


22  GREAr   PRINCIPLES   AND    SMALL   DUTIES. 

directly  to  them,  and  lived  wholly  in  them ;  scattered  glori- 
ous miracles  and  sacred  truths  along  the  hidden  by-paths 
and  in  the  mean  recesses  of  existence;  serving  the  mendi- 
cant and  the  widow,  blessing  the  child,  healing  the  leprosy 
of  body  and  of  soul,  and  kneeling  to  wash  even  the  traitor's 
feet.  In  himself  was  the  serene  and  unapproachable  dignity 
of  a  higher  nature,  a  mind  at  one  with  the  universe  and  its 
Author ;  in  his  acts^  a  frugal  respect  for  the  most  neglected 
elements  of  human  life,  declaring  that  he  came  not  to  be 
ministered  unto  but  to  minister.  What  wonder  that,  when 
he  had  been  ensphered  in  the  immortal  world,  he  appeared 
to  the  affectionate  memories  of  men  as  a  divine  being  who 
had  disrobed  himself  of  rightful  glory  to  take  pity  on  their 
sorrows,  and  had  put  on  for  the  gladness  of  praise  the 
garment  of  heaviness  ?  The  conception  is  at  least  in  close 
kindred  with  a  noble  truth,  —  that  a  soul  occupied  with 
great  ideas  best  performs  small  duties;  that  the  divinest 
views  of  life  penetrate  most  clearly  into  the  meanest  emer- 
gencies; that  so  far  from  petty  principles  being  best  pro- 
portioned to  petty  trials,  a  heavenly  spirit  taking  up  its 
abode  with  us  can  alone  sustain  well  the  daily  toils,  and 
tranquilly  pass  the  humiliations  of  our  condition  ;  and  that, 
to  keep  the  house  of  the  soul  in  order  due  and  pure,  a  god 
must  come  down  and  dwell  within,  as  servant  of  all  its 
work. 

Even  in  intellectual  culture  this  principle  receives  illus- 
tration ;  and  it  will  be  found  that  the  ripest  knowledge  is 
best  qualified  to  instruct  the  most  complete  ignorance.  It 
is  a  common  mistake  to  suppose  that  those  who  know  little 
suffice  to  inform  those  who  know  less :  that  the  master  who 
is  but  a  stage  before  the  pupil  can,  as  well  as  another,  show 
him  the  way ;  nay,  that  there  may  even  be  an  advantage 
in  this  near  approach  between  the  minds  of  teacher  and  of 
taught ;  since  the  recollection  of  recent  difficulties,  and  the 
vividness  of  fresh  acquisition,  give  to  the  one  a  more  living 
interest  in  the  progress  of  the  other.     Of  all  educational 


GKEAT   PRINCIPLES   AND    SMALL   DUTIES.  23 

errors,  this  is  one  of  the  gravest.  The  approximation  required 
between  the  mind  of  teacher  and  of  taught  is  not  that  of  a 
common  ignorance,  but  of  mutual  sympathy ;  not  a  partner- 
ship in  narrowness  of  understanding,  but  that  thorough 
insight  of  the  one  into  the  other,  that  orderly  analysis  of 
the  tangled  skein  of  thought,  that  patient  and  masterly  skill 
in  developing  conception  after  conception,  with  a  constant 
view  to  a  remote  result,  which  can  only  belong  to  compre- 
hensive knowledge  and  prompt  affections.  With  whatever 
accuracy  the  recently  initiated  may  give  out  his  new  stores, 
he  will  rigidly  follow  the  precise  method  by  which  he  made 
them  his  own ;  and  will  want  that  variety  and  fertility  of 
resource,  that  command  of  the  several  paths  of  access  to  a 
truth,  which  are  given  by  a  thorough  survey  of  the  whole 
field  on  which  he  stands.  The  instructor  needs  to  have  a 
full  perception,  not  merely  of  the  internal  contents,  but  also 
of  the  external  relations,  of  that  which  he  unfolds;  as  the 
astronomer  knows  but  little  if,  ignorant  of  the  place  and 
laws  of  moon  and  sun,  he  has  examined  only  their  mountains 
and  their  spots.  The  sense  of  proportion  between  the  dif- 
ferent parts  and  stages  of  a  subject,  the  appreciation  of 
every  step  at  its  true  value,  the  foresight  of  the  section  that 
remains  in  its  real  magnitude  and  direction,  are  qualities  so 
essential  to  the  teacher,  that  without  them  all  instruction  is 
but  an  insult  to  the  learner's  understanding.  And  in  virtue 
of  these  it  is,  that  the  most  cultivated  minds  are  usually  the 
most  patieat,  most  clear,  most  rationally  progressive  ;  most 
studious  of  accuracy  in  details,  because  not  impatiently  shut 
up  within  them  as  absolutely  limiting  the  view,  but  quietly 
contemplating  them  from  without  in  their  relation  to  the 
whole.  Neglect  and  depreciation  of  intellectual  minutiaB 
are  characteristics  of  the  ill-informed :  and  where  the  gran- 
ular parts  of  study  are  thrown  away  or  loosely  held,  there 
will  be  found  no  compact  mass  of  knowledge  solid  and  clear 
as  crystal,  but  a  sandy  accumulation,  bound  together  by  no 
cohesion  and  transmitting  no  light.     And  above  and  beyond 


24  GREAT   PRINCIPLES   AND   SMALL  DUTIES. 

all  the  advantages  which,  a  higher  culture  gives  in  the  mere 
system  of  communicating  knowledge,  must  be  placed  that 
indefinable  and  mysterious  power  which  a  superior  mind 
always  puts  forth  upon  an  inferior;  that  living  and  life- 
giving  action,  by  which  the  mental  forces  are  strengthened 
and  developed,  and  a  spirit  of  intelligence  is  produced,  far 
transcending  in  excellence  the  acquisition  of  any  special  ideas. 
In  the  task  of  instruction,  so  lightly  assumed,  so  unworthily 
esteemed,  no  amount  of  wisdom  would  be  superfluous  and 
lost ;  and  even  the  child's  elementary  teaching  would  be 
best  conducted,  were  it  possible,  by  Omniscience  itself.  The 
more  comprehensive  the  range  of  intellectual  view,  and  the 
more  minute  the  perception  of  its  parts,  the  greater  will  be 
the  simplicity  of  conception,  the  aptitude  for  exposition,  and 
the  directness  of  access  to  the  open  and  expectant  mind. 
This  adaptation  to  the  humblest  wants  is  the  peculiar  triumph 
of  the  highest  spirit  of  knowledge. 

In  the  same  way  it  is  observable  that  the  trivial  services 
of  social  life  are  best  performed,  and  the  lesser  particles 
of  domestic  happiness  are  most .  skilfully  organized,  by  the 
deepest  and  the  fairest  heart.  It  is  an  error  to  suppose  that 
homely  minds  are  the  best  administrators  of  small  duties. 
Who  does  not  know  how  wretched  a  contradiction  such  a 
rule  receives  in  the  moral  economy  of  many  a  home? — how 
often  the  daily  troubles,  the  swarm  of  blessed  cares,  the 
innumerable  minutiae  of  arrangement  in  a  family,  prove  quite 
too  much  for  the  generalship  of  feeble  minds,  and  even  the 
clever  selfishness  of  strong  ones  ? — ho  w  a  petty  and  scrupulous 
anxiety,  in  defending  with  infinite  perseverance  some  small 
and  almost  invisible  point  of  frugality  and  comfort,  sur- 
renders the  greater  unobserved,  and  while  saving  money 
ruins  minds?  —  how,  on  the  other  hand,  a  rough  and  unmel- 
lowed  sagacity  rules  indeed  and  without  defeat,  but,  while 
maintaining  in  action  the  mechanism  of  government,  creates 
a  constant  and  intolerable  friction,  a  grating  together  of 
reluctant  wills,  a  groaning  under  the  consciousness  of  force, 


GREAT   PKINCIPLES   AND   SMALL   DUTIES.  25 

that  make  the  movements  of  life  fret  and  chafe  incessantly  ? 
But  where,  in  the  presiding  genius  of  a  home,  taste  and 
sympathy  unite  (and  in  their  genuine  forms  they  cannot  be 
separated),  —  the  intelligent  feeling  for  moral  beauty  and 
the  deep  heart  of  domestic  love,  —  with  what  ease,  what 
mastery,  what  graceful  disposition,  do  the  seeming  triviali- 
ties of  existence  fall  into  order,  and  drop  a  blessing  as  they 
take  their  place !  how  do  the  hours  steal  away,  unnoticed 
but  by  the  precious  fruits  they  leave!  and  by  the  self-re- 
nunciations of  affection,  there  comes  a  spontaneous  adjust- 
ment of  various  wills ;  and  not  an  innocent  pleasure  is  lost, 
nor  a  pure  taste  offended,  nor  a  peculiar  temper  unconsid- 
ered ;  and  every  day  has  its  silent  achievements  of  wisdom, 
and  every  night  its  retrospect  of  piety  and  love ;  and  the 
tranquil  thoughts  that,  in  the  evening  meditation,  come 
down  with  the  starlight,  seem  like  the  serenade  of  angels, 
bringing  in  melody  the  peace  of  God!  Wherever  this 
picture  is  realized,  it  is  not  by  microscopic  solicitude  of 
spirit,  but  by  comprehension  of  mind  and  enlargement  of 
heart;  by  that  breadth  and  nicety  of  moral  view  which 
discerns  every  thing  in  due  proportion,  and,  in  avoiding  an 
intense  elaboration  of  trifles,  has  energy  to  spare  for  what 
is  great;  in  short,  by  a  perception  akin  to  that  of  God, 
whose  providing  frugality  is  on  an  infinite  scale,  vigilant 
alike  in  heaven  and  on  earth  ;  whose  art  colors  a  universe 
with  beauty,  and  touches  with  its  pencil  the  petals  of  a 
flower.  A  soul  thus  pure  and  large  disowns  the  paltry  rules 
of  dignity,  the  silly  notions  of  great  and  mean,  by  which 
fashion  distorts  God's  real  proportions  ;  is  utterly  delivered 
from  the  spirit  of  contempt ;  and,  in  consulting  for  the  benign 
administration  of  life,  will  learn  many  a  task,  and  discharge 
many  an  office,  from  which  lesser  beings,  esteeming  them- 
selves greater,  would  shrink  as  ignoble.  But,  in  truth, 
nothing  is  degrading  which  a  high  and  graceful  purpose 
ennobles;  and  ofl[ices  the  most  menial  cease  to  be  menial, 
the  moment  they  are  wrought  in  love.     What  thousand 


26  GREAT   PRINCIELES   AND    SMALL   DUTIES. 

services  are  rendered,  ay  and  by  delicate  hands,  around 
the  bed  of  sickness,  which,  else  considered  mean,  become 
at  once  holy  and  quite  inalienable  rights !  To  smooth  the 
pillow,  to  proffer  the  draught,  to  soothe  or  to  obey  the 
fancies  of  the  delirious  will,  to  sit  for  hours  as  a  mere  senti- 
nel of  the  feverish  sleep,  —  these  things  are  suddenly  erected, 
by  their  relation  to  hope  and  life,  into  sacred  privileges. 
And  experience  is  perpetually  bringing  occasions,  similar  in 
kind  though  of  less  persuasive  poignancy,  when  a  true  eye 
and  a  lovely  heart  will  quickly  see  the  relations  of  things 
thrown  into  a  new  position,  and  calling  for  a  sacrifice  of 
conventional  order  to  the  higher  laws  of  the  affections  ;  and, 
alike  without  condescension  and  without  ostentation,  will 
noiselessly  take  the  post  of  gentle  service  and  do  the  kindly 
deed.  Thus  is  it  that  the  lesser  graces  display  themselves 
most  richly,  like  the  leaves  and  flowers  of  life,  where  there 
is  the  deepest  and  the  widest  root  of  love ;  not  like  the 
staring  and  artificial  blossoms  of  dry  custom  that,  winter  or 
summer,  cannot  change  ;  but  living  petals  woven  in  Nature's 
workshop  and  folded  by  her  tender  skill,  opening  and  shut- 
ting morning  and  night,  glancing  and  trembling  in  the  sun- 
shine and  the  breeze.  This  easy  capacity  of  great  affections 
for  small  duties  is  the  peculiar  triumph  of  the  highest  spirit 
of  love. 

The  same  application  of  the  loftiest  principles  to  the  most 
minute  details  is  still  more  perceptible  when  we  rise  a  step 
higher,  and,  from  the  operations  of  knowledge  and  of  love, 
turn  to  notice  the  agency  of  high  religious  faith.  In  the 
management  and  conquest  of  the  daily  disappointments  and 
small  vexations  which  befall  every  life,  —  the  life  of  the  idle 
and  luxurious  no  less  than  of  the  busy  and  struggling,  — 
only  a  devout  mind  attains  to  any  real  success,  and  evinces 
a  triumphant  power.  Who  has  not  observed  how  wonder- 
fully the  mere  insect-cares,  that  are  ever  on  the  wing  in  the 
noon-day  heat  of  life,  have  power  to  sting  and  to  annoy  even 
the  giant  minds  around  which  they  sport,  and  to  provoke 


GREAT   PRINCIPLES   AND   SMALL   DUTIES.  27 

them  into  the  most  unseemly  war?  The  finest  sense,  the 
profoundest  knowledge,  the  most  unquestionable  taste,  often 
prove  an  unequal  match  for  insignificant  irritations ;  and  a 
man  whose  philosophy  subdues  nature,  and  whose  force  of 
thought  and  purpose  gives  him  ascendency  over  men,  may 
keep,  in  his  own  temper,  an  unvanquished  enemy  at  home. 
Nor  is  this  found  only  in  cases  of  great  self-ignorance,  or 
impaired  vigor  in  the  moral  sense.  Even  where  the  evil  is 
self-confessed  and  felt  as  a  perpetual  shame,  where  the 
conscience  sets  up  against  it  an  honest  and  firm  resistance, 
it  is  quite  possible  that  very  little  progress  may  be  made, 
and  very  little  quietness  attained.  This  is  one  of  the  many 
forms  of  duty  in  which  mere  moral  conviction,  however 
clear  and  strong,  will  continually  fail.  You  may  be  per- 
suaded that  it  is  wrong  to  be  provoked  ;  you  may  repeat  to 
yourself  that  it  is  useless ;  you  may  command  your  lips  to 
silence,  and  breathe  no  angry  word  :  and  yet  withal  the  per- 
turbation is  not  gone,  but  only  dumb ;  the  conquest  is  not 
made,  but  the  defeat  concealed.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
efforts  of  volition  that  has  power  to  change  the  point  of 
mental  view ;  these  self-strivings  do  not  lift  you  out  of  the 
level  of  your  trial ;  you  remain  imprisoned  in  the  midst  of 
it,  wrestle  with  its  miseries  as  you  may ;  wanting  the  uplift- 
ing faith,  by  which  you  escape  from  it,  and  look  down  upon 
it.  It  may  be  very  absurd,  nay  very  immoral,  to  be  teased 
by  trifles;  but  alas!  while  you  remain  in  the  dust,  reason 
as  you  may,  it  will  annoy  you ;  and  there  is  no  help  for  it, 
but  to  retire  into  a  higher  and  grassier  region,  where  the 
sultry  road  is  visible  from  afar.  We  must  go  in  contempla- 
tion out  of  life,  ere  we  can  see  how  its  troubles  subside  and 
are  lost,  like  evanescent  waves,  in  the  deeps  of  eternity  and 
the  immensity  of  God.  A  mind  that  can  make  this  migra- 
tion from  the  scene  by  which  it  is  surrounded,  is  removed 
from  all  vain  strife  of  will,  and  gains  its  tranquillity  without 
an  efibrt ;  feels  no  difliculty  in  being  gentle  and  serene,  but 
rather  wonders  that  it  could  ever  be  tempted  from  its  pure 


28  GREAT   PRINCIPLES   AND    SMALL   DUTIES. 

repose.  How  welcome  would  it  often  be  to  many  a  child 
of  anxiety  and  toil,  to  be  suddenly  transferred  from  the  heat 
and  din  of  the  city,  the  restlessness  and  worry  of  the  mart, 
to  the  midnight  garden  or  the  mountain  top !  And  like 
refreshment  does  a  high  faith,  with  its  infinite  prospects  ever 
open  to  the  heart,  afford  to  the  worn  and  weary :  no  labori- 
ous travels  are  needed  for  the  devout  mind ;  for  it  carries 
within  it  Alpine  heights  and  starlit  skies,  which  it  may 
reach  with  a  moment's  thought,  and  feel  at  once  the  loneli- 
ness of  nature,  and  the  magnificence  of  God. 

Nor  is  it  only  in  the  government  of  ourselves  that  high 
faith  is  found  the  most  efficient  aid  for  the  less  dignified 
duties.  In  the  services  which  benevolence  must  render  to 
others,  the  same  truth  is  exemplified  ;  and  the  humblest  and 
homeliest  form  of  benevolence  —  attention  to  the  grievances 
and  sufferings  of  the  body  —  receives  its  most  powerful 
motive  from  the  sublimest  of  all  truths,  the  doctrine  of 
human  immortality.  A  different  result  might  perhaps  have 
been  anticipated.  It  might  have  been  thought  that  for  the 
truest  sympathy  with  the  pains  of  disease  and  the  priva- 
tions of  infirmity,  we  must  look  to  the  disciples  of  material- 
ism and  annihilation ;  that  they  who  take  the  body  to  be 
our  all,  would  most  vehemently  deplore  its  fragility,  and 
most  affectionately  tend  its  decline  ;  that  no  love  would  be 
so  faithful  as  that  which  believed,  at  the  death-bed  of  a 
friend,  that  the  real  last  look,  the  absolute  farewell,  was 
drawing  nigh.  On  the  theory  of  extinction,  oh,  with  what 
close  embrace  would  it  seem  natural  to  cling  to  each  sink- 
ing life,  —  like  kindred  in  shipwreck  that  cannot  part !  The 
vivid  expectation  of  futurity,  which  has  so  often  led  the 
believer  to  ascetic  contempt  for  his  own  physical  wants, 
would  appear  only  consistent,  if  it  passed  by  in  equal  scorn 
the  bodily  miseries  of  others.  But  it  has  not  been  so.  In 
this,  as  in  all  the  other  instances,  it  appears  that  the  sublim- 
est instruments  of  the  mind  are  the  best  fitted  to  the  most 
homely  offices  of  duty  ;  and  that  truths  the  most  divine  are 


GREAT   PRINCIPLES   AND   SMALL   DUTIES.  29 

the  gentlest  servitors  of  wants  the  most  humiliating.  In 
the  eye  of  one  who  looks  on  his  fellow-man  as  a  compound 
being,  the  immortal  element  imparts,  not  meanness,  but  a 
species  of  sanctity,  to  the  mortal ;  just  as  the  worshipper 
feels  that  of  the  temple  whose  space  has  been  set  apart  for 
God  the  very  stones  are  sacred,  and  the  pavement  claims  a 
venerating  tread.  It  is  this  constant  penetration  to  the 
mind  within,  this  recognition  of  something  that  is  not  seen, 
that  overcomes  the  physical  repulsiveness  of  corporeal  want 
and  pain,  and  gives  a  tranquil  patience  to  the  Christian  who 
watches  the  ravages  of  disease  and  the  approach  of  death. 
ISTay,  when  he  sees  the  soul,  which  is  the  heir  of  heaven, 
prostrated  and  tortured  by  a  wretched  frame,  he  thinks  it 
almost  an  indignity  that  so  kingly  a  habitant  should  pine 
in  so  poor  a  cell,  and  a  native  of  the  light  itself  cry  thus 
aloud  in  dark  captivity;  and  with  touched  and  generous 
heart  he  flies  to  the  sufferer,  with  such  help  and  succor  as 
he  may. 

Let  us,-  then,  cherish  and  revere  the  great  sentiments 
which  we  assemble  here  to  pour  forth  in  worship,  not  as 
the  occasional  solace  or  the  weekly  dignities  of  our  exist- 
ence ;  but  as  truths  that  naturally  penetrate  to  the  very 
heart  of  life's  activity,  and  best  administer  even  the  small 
frugalities  of  conscience.  Nothing  less  than  the  majesty  of 
God  and  the  powers  of  the  world  to  come  can  maintain  the 
peace  and  sanctity  of  our  homes,  the  order  and  serenity  of 
our  minds,  the  spirit  of  patience  and  tender  mercy  in  our 
hearts.  Then  only  shall  we  wisely  economize  moments 
when  we  anticipate  for  ourselves  an  eternity  and  lose  no 
grain  of  wisdom,  when  we  discern  the  glorious  and  immor- 
tal structure  which  its  successive  accumulations  shall  raise. 
Then  will  even  the  merest  drudgery  of  duty  cease  to  hum- 
ble us,  when  we  transfigure  it  by  the  glory  of  our  own 
spirit.  Seek  ye  then  the  things  that  aje  ^QXfi>_where  yotir 
life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God.       y^^^^-i-^^^    ~-->v  <nK 

iftJlTIVERSITr] 


^-IFOETS^ 


IV. 
EDEN  AND  GETHSEMANE. 


1  Cor.  XV.  46. 

AND  so  IT  IS  WRITTEN,  THE  FIRST  MAN  ADAM  WAS  MADE  A  LIVING  SOUL, 
THE  LAST  ADAM  WAS  MADE  A  QUICKENING  SPIRIT.  HOWBKIT  THAT  WAS 
NOT  FIRST  WHICH  IS  SPIRITUAL,  BUT  THAT  WHICH  IS  NATURAL;  AND 
AFTERWARD   THAT  WHICH  18  SPIRITUAL. 

Great  and  sacred  was  the  day  of  Adam's  birth  ;  if  for  no 
other  reason  yet  for  this,  —  that  he  was  the  first  man  and 
had  a  living  soul.  The  impressions  received  by  the  original 
human  being,  dropped  silently  at  dawn  from  infinite  night 
upon  this  green  earth,  can  never  have  been  repeated.  With 
maturity  of  powers,  yet  without  a  memory  or  a  hope  ;  with 
full-eyed  perception,  yet  without  interpreting  experience ; 
with  all  things  new,  yet  without  surprise,  since  also  there 
was  nothing  old ;  he  was  thrown  upon  those  primitive 
instincts  by  which  God  teaches  the  untaught :  left  to  wan- 
der over  his  abode  and  note  the  ever-living  attitudes  of 
Nature,  and  from  her  bewildering  mixture  of  the  original 
with  the  repeated,  from  rest  and  weariness,  from  the  con- 
fusion of  waking  and  of  dreams  (both  real  alike  to  him), 
from  the  glow  of  noon  and  the  fall  of  darkness  and  the 
night,  from  the  summer  shower  and  the  winter  snow,  to 
disentangle  some  order  at  length,  and  recognize  the  element- 
ary laws  of  the  spot  whereon  he  dwelt. 

Fast  as  five  senses  and  a  receiving  mind  would  permit, 
did  he  find  lohere  he  was,  and  when  he  came,  and  by  what 
sort  of  scene  he  was  environed;  how  the  fair  show  of  crea- 
tion came  round,  each  part  in  its  own  section  of  space  and 


EDEN  AND   GETHSEMANE.  31 

time,  persuading  him  to  notice  and  obey.  And  when  he  is 
thus  the  pupil  of  the  external  world,  he  is  in  training  to 
become  its  lord ;  by  the  discipline  of  submission  learning  the 
faculty  of  rule.  Beneath  the  steady  eye  of  human  observa- 
tion, nature  becomes  fascinated,  and  consents  to  be  the 
menial  and  the  drudge  of  man,  doing  the  bidding  of  his 
wants  and  will,  and  apprenticing  her  illimitable  power  to 
his  prescribing  skill.  And  so  was  it  given  to  the  father  of 
our  race,  for  himself  and  for  his  children,  to  subdue  the 
earth,  to  put  forth  the  invisible  force  of  his  mind  in  con- 
quest of  its  palpable  energies,  to  give  the  savage  elements 
their  first  lesson  as  the  domestic  slaves  of  human  life,  and 
make  some  rude  advance  towards  that  docility  with  which 
now  they  till  and  spin  and  weave  and  carry  burdens,  with 
the  fleetness  of  the  winds  and  the  precision  of  the  hours. 
To  a  living  and  understanding  soul,  what  was  the  unex- 
hausted world  but  in  itself  a  Paradise?  And  was  there 
aught  else  for  its  earliest  inhabitant  but  to  discover  what 
fruits  he  might  open  his  bosom  to  receive  from  the  universe 
around  ?  Worthily  does  the  Bible  open  with  the  story  of 
Eden,  —  the  fresh  dawn,  the  untrodden  garden  of  our  life. 
Truly,  too,  whatever  geologists  may  find  and  say,  is  that 
day  identified  with  the  general  act  of  creation  ;  for  in  no 
intelligible  human  sense  was  there  any  universe,  till  there 
was  a  soul  filled  with  the  idea  thereof.  The  system  of  things 
of  which  Moses  proposed  to  himself  to  write  the  origin,  was 
not  a  saui'ian's  or  a  mammoth's  world,  not  such  a  creation 
as  was  pictured  in  the  perceptions  of  huge  reptiles  and 
extinct  fishes  ;  but  such  a  universe  as  the  spirit  of  a  man 
discerns  within  and  so  spreads  without  him  ;  and  of  this  it 
is  certain,  that  the  instant  of  his  birth  was  the  date  of  its 
creation.  For  had  he  been  different,  it  would  not  have  been 
the  same  ;  had  he  been  opposite,  it  would  have  been  re- 
versed ;  and  had  he  not  been  at  all,  it  would  not  have 
appeared.  Whatever  is  solemn  in  the  apparition  of  the 
fair  and  infinite  universe,  belongs  to  the  day  of  Adam's 
birth. 


32  EDEN   AND   GETHSEMANE. 

Greater,  however,  and  more  sacred,  was  the  day  of 
Christ's  birth  ;  of  that  "  second  man,"  as  Paul  says  with 
glorious  meaning,  of  that  "  last  Adam,"  who  was  "  a  quick- 
ening spirit,"  and  the  first  parent  of  a  new  race  of  souls. 
He,  too,  was  placed  by  the  hand  of  God  upon  a  fresh  world, 
and  commissioned  to  explore  its  silent  and  trackless  ways  ; 
to  watch  and  rest  in  its  darkness,  and  use  and  bless  its 
light ;  to  learn  by  instincts  divine  and  true  of  its  blossoms 
and  its  fruits,  its  fountains  and  its  floods.  But  it  was  the 
world  within,  the  untrodden  forests  of  the  soul  where  the 
consciousness  of  God  hides  itself  in  such  dim  light,  and 
whispers  with  such  mystic  sound,  as  befit  a  region  so  bound- 
less and  primeval,  —  it  was  this  on  which  Jesus  dwelt  as  the 
first  inspired  interpreter.  To  him  it  was  given,  not  to  cast 
his  eye  around  human  life  and  observe  by  what  scene  it  was 
encompassed,  but  to  retire  into  it,  and  reveal  what  it  con- 
tained;  not  to  disclose  how  man  is  materially  placed,  but 
what  he  spiritually  is  ;  to  comprehend  and  direct,  not  his 
natural  advantages  of  skill  and  physical  power,  but  his 
grief,  his  hope,  his  strife,  his  love,  his  sin,  his  worship.  He 
was  to  find,  not  what  "comfort  man  may  open  his  bosom  to 
receive,  but  what  blessing  he  may  open  his  heart  to  give ; 
nay,  what  transforming  light  may  go  forth  from  the  con- 
science and  the  faith  within,  to  make  the  common  earth 
divine,  and  exhibit  around  it  the  mountain  heights  of  God's 
protection :  to  show  us  the  Father,  not  as  the  great  me- 
chanic of  the  universe,  whose  arrangements  we  obey  that 
we  may  use  them,  but  as  the  Holy  Spirit  that  moves  us  with 
the  sigh  of  infinite  desires,  and  the  prayer  of  ever-conscious 
guilt,  and  the  meek  hope  —  that  stays  by  us  so  long  as  we 
are  absolutely  true  —  of  help  and  pity  from  the  Holiest. 
And  if  the  affections  are  as  the  colored  window,  —  near  and 
small  and  of  the  earth,  or  far  and  vast  and  of  the  sky, — 
through  which  we  receive  the  images  of  all  things,  and  find 
them  change  with  the  glass  of  our  perceptions,  how  justly 
does  the  Apostle  Paul  deem  the  work  of  Christ  "a  new 


EDEN   AND    GETHSEMANE.  83 

creation  " !  If  he  that  makes  an  eye,  calls  up  the  mighty 
phantasm  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth ;  he  that  forms  a 
soul  within  ;us  remodels  our  universe  and  reveals  our  God. 
Eden,  then,  is  less  sacred  than  the  streets  of  Bethlehem 
and  the  fields  of  Nazareth  ;  though,  as  befits  the  cradle  of 
the  natural  man  who  needs  such  things,  its  atmosphere 
might  be  purer  and  its  slopes  more  verdant.  Indeed  in  all 
their  adjuncts  do  we  see  the  character  of  the  two  events, 
and  how  "  afterwards  "  alone  came  "  that  which  was  spirit- 
ual." When  the  first  man  heard  the  voice  and  step  of  the 
Most  High,  it  was  outwardly  among  the  trees,  —  as  was 
natural  to  one  born  of  the  mere  physical  and  constructing 
energy  of  God,  without  a  mother  and  without  a  home: 
when  Jesus  discerned  the  divine  accents,  the  whispers  of 
the  Father  were  within  him,  the  solemn  articulation  of  the 
spirit  infinitely  affectionate  and  wise;  —  a  distinction  alto- 
gether suitable  to  one  born  of  that  mother  who  hid  many 
things  in  her  heart,  —  granted  to  us  by  that  gentlest  form 
of  the  divine  love,  whence  alone  great  and  noble  natures 
are  ever  nurtured.  When  Adam  entered  life,  the  earth  was 
glad  and  jubilant ;  when  Christ  was  born,  the  joy  was  tes- 
tified by  angels,  and  the  anthem  sounded  from  the  shy. 
The  "  first  man  "  subdued  the  physical  world ;  the  "  last 
man"  won  the  immortal  heaven. 

Fellow-men  and  fellow-Christians,  there  is  an  Adam  and 
a  Christ  within  us  all ;  a  natural  and  a  spiritual  man, 
whereof  the  father  of  our  race  and  the  author  of  our  faith 
are  the  respective  emblems,  both  in  the  order  of  their  suc- 
cession and  the  nature  of  their  mission.  We  are  endowed 
with  powers  of  sense,  of  understanding,  of  action,  by  which 
we  communicate  with  the  scene  of  our  present  existence, 
and  win  triumphs  over  external  and  finite  nature  ;  by  which 
we  appropriate  and  multiply  the  fruits  of  Providence  per- 
mitted to  our  happiness.  And  we  are  conscious,  however 
faintly,  of  aspirations  and  affections,  of  a  faith  and  wonder, 
of  a  hope  and  sadness,  which  bear  us  beyond  the  margin  of 

3 


84  EDEN  AND  GETHSEMANE. 

the  earthly  and  finite,  and  afford  some  glimpse  of  the  infini- 
tude in  which  we  live.  By  the  one  we  go  foith  and  dis- 
cover our  knowledge ;  by  the  other  return  within  and  learn 
our  ignorance :  by  the  one  we  conquer  nature,  by  the  other 
we  serve  God  :  by  the  one  we  shut  ourselves  up  in  life,  by 
the  other  we  look  with  full  gaze  through  death  :  by  the  one 
we  acquire  happiness  and  sagacity  and  skill ;  by  the  other 
wisdom  and  sanctity  and  truth  :  by  the  one  we  look  on  our 
position  and  all  that  surrounds  it  with  the  eye  of  economy ; 
by  the  other  with  the  eye  of  love.  Our  first  and  superfi- 
cial aim  is  to  be, like  Adam,  lord  below  :  our  last  to  be,  like 
Christ,  associate  above.  In  short,  the  individual  mind  is 
conducted  through  a  history  like  the  sacred  record  of  the 
general  race,  and,  if  it  be  just  to  its  capacities,  passes 
through  a  period  of  new  creation  ;  and  every  noble  life, 
like  the  Bible  (which  is  '*  the  book  of  life  "),  begins  with 
Paradise  and  ends  with  heaven. 

Ere  Jesus  became  the  Christ,  he  was  led  into  the  desert 
to  be  tempted.  And  before  the  Messiah  within  us  —  the 
messenger-spirit  of  God  in  the  soul  —  can  make  his  inspira- 
tion felt,  and  render  his  voice  articulate  and  clear,  we  too 
must  have  been  called  to  severe  and  lonely  struggles  with 
the  power  of  sin.  On  no  lighter  terms  can  the  natural  man 
pass  into  the  spiritual,  and  Deity  shape  forth  a  dwelling 
within  the  deeps  of  our  humanity.  In  childhood,  we  live 
in  God's  creation,  as  in  the  unanxious  shelter  of  some  Eden  ; 
the  innocent  in  a  garden  of  fruits,  where  the  tillage  demands 
no  toil,  and,  with  smallest  restraint,  we  have  little  else  but 
to  gather  and  enjoy :  and  the  utmost  duty  is  to  abstain, 
rather  than  to  do ;  to  keep  the  lips  from  forbidden  fruits, 
not  to  spend  the  labor  and  sorrow  of  the  brow  or  of  the 
soul,  in  order  to  raise  and  multiply  the  bread  of  nature  or 
of  life.  And  many,  alas !  there  are,  who  make  their  life 
tliis  sort  of  holiday  thing  unto  the  end,  and  retain  its  child- 
ishness, only,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  losing  all  its 
innocence  J   strolling  through  it  as  a  mere  fruit-gathering 


EDEN   AND   GETHSEMANE.  35 

place,  a  garden  of  indulgence,  a  Paradise  sacred  no  more 
because  empty  now  of  God,  and  unvisited  by  the  murmurs 
of  his  voice.  There  comes  a  time  to  us  all,  when  the  sense 
of  responsibility  starts  up  and  rebukes  our  anxiety  for  ease ; 
tells  us  that  we  are  living,  fast  and  once  for  all,  a  life  that 
enlarges  to  the  scale  of  eternity,  and  is  embosomed  every- 
where in  God ;  bids  us  spring  from  our  collapse  of  selfish- 
ness and  sleep,  take  up  the  full  dimensions  of  our  strength, 
and  go  forth  to  do  much,  if  it  be  possible,  and  at  least  to  do 
worthily  and  well.  And  full  often  is  the  conflict  terrible 
between  the  indolence  of  custom,  the  passiveness  of  self- 
will,  and  this  inspiring  impulse  of  the  divine  deliverer 
within  us.  Many  a  secret  passage  of  our  existence  does  it 
make  bleak  as  the  wilderness,  and  lonely  as  the  Dead-Sea 
shore;  in  many  an  hour  of  meditation,  seemingly  the 
stillest,  does  it  inwardly  tear  us,  as  in  the  mid-strife  of 
heaven  and  hell,  and  leave  us  wasted  as  with  fasting  nigh 
to  death  :  but  oh !  if  we  are  only  true  to  the  spirit  that 
declares  "  we  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone ;  "  if  we  quietly 
descend  from  the  pinnacle  of  our  pride  (though  sin  may 
pretend  to  make  it  sacred  and  call  it  a  turret  of  the  tem- 
ple) ;  if  we  keep  close  to  the  meek  appointed  ways  of  Him 
whom  our  presumption  must  not  try :  if  we  bend  no  knee 
to  the  majesty  of  splendid  wrong,  but,  in  single  allegiance 
to  the  Holiest,  drive  away  the  most  glorious  spirit  of  guilt 
that  honors  our  strength  with  his  assault,  -^  do  we  not  find 
at  length  that  angels  come  and  minister  unto  us ;  that  the 
waste  appears  to  vanish  suddenly  away,  and  the  desert  to 
blossom  as  the  rose ;  that  we  are  restored  as  to  a  garden, 
not  of  the  earth,  but  of  the  Lord,  filled  with  the  whispers 
of  divinest  peace  ?  And  so  our  energy  is  born  from  the 
moments  of  weakness  and  of  fear ;  and,  were  there  no  hell 
to  tempt  us,  there  were  no  heaven  to  bless.  From  the 
crisis  of  trembling  and  of  doubt,  we  issue  forth  to  take  up 
our  mission  gladly,  with  the  unspeakable  shelter  of  God 
without  us,  and  the  hidden  life  of  his  love  within  us. 


36  EDEN   AND    GETHSEMANE. 

Again  :  he  who  gave  us  the  Gospel  was  "  the  Man  of 
Sorrows;"  and  the  glad  tidings  of  great  joy  were  pro- 
nounced by  a  voice  mellowed  by  many  a  sadness.  And  not 
otherwise  is  it  with  the  messenger-spirit  of  our  private 
hearts  ;  which  does  not  become  the  Christ,  the  consecrated 
revealer  of  what  is  holy,  unless  it  be  much  acquainted  with 
grief.  Heaven  and  God  are  best  discerned  through  tears ; 
scarcely  perhaps  discerned  at  all  without  them.  I  do  not 
mean  that  a  man  must  be  outwardly  afflicted,  and  lose  his 
comforts  or  his  friends,  before  he  can  become  devout. 
Many  a  Christian  maintains  the  truest  heart  of  piety  with- 
out such  dispensations  ;  and  more,  alas !  remain  as  hard  and 
cold  as  ever  in  spite  of  them.  That  there  is  felt  to  be  a 
general  tendency,  however,  in  the  blow  of  calamity  and  the 
sense  of  loss,  to  awaken  the  latent  thought  of  God  and  per- 
suade us  to  seek  his  refuge,  the  current  language  of  devo- 
tion in  every  age,  the  constant  association  of  prayer  with 
the  hour  of  bereavement  and  the  scenes  of  death,  suffice  to 
show.  Yet  is  this  effect  of  external  distress  only  a  particu- 
lar instance  of  a  general  truth,  viz.,  that  religion  springs  up 
in  the  mind  whenever  any  of  the  infinite  affections  and 
desires  press  severely  against  the  finite  conditions  of  our 
existence.  In  ill-disciplined  and  contracted  souls,  this  sor- 
rowful condition  is  never  fulfilled,  except  when  some  nmch- 
loved  blessing  is  forcibly  snatched  away,  and  their  human 
attachment  (which  is  infinite)  is  surprised  (though  knowing 
it  well  before)  at  the  violence  of  death,  knocks  with  vain 
cries  at  the  cruel  barriers  of  our  humanity,  and  is  answered 
by  the  voice  of  mystery  from  beyond.  But  such  was  not 
the  sorrow  with  which  Christ  was  stricken  ;  nor  is  such  the 
only  sorrow  with  which  good  and  faithful  minds  are  affected. 
There  are  many  immeasurable  affections  of  our  nature, 
besides  that  which  makes  our  kindred  dear :  the  yearning 
for  truth,  the  delight  in  beauty,  the  veneration  for  excel- 
lence, the  high  ambition  of  conscience  ever  pressing  forward 
yet  unable  to  attain,  —  these  also  live  within  us,  and  strive 


EDEN   AND   GETHSEMANE.  37 

unceasingly  in  noble  hearts ;  and  there  is  an  inner  and 
viewless  sorrow,  a  spontaneous  weeping  of  these  infinite 
desires,  whence  the  highest  order  of  faith  and  devotion  will 
he  found  to  spring  ;  so  much  so,  that  no  one  can  even  think 
of  Christ,  visibly  social  and  cheerful  as  he  was,  without  the 
belief  of  a  secret  sadness,  that  might  be  overheard  in  his 
solitary  prayers.  Those  who  make  the  end  of  existence  to 
consist  of  happiness  may  try  to  conceal  so  perplexing  a 
fact,  and  may  draw  pictures  of  the  exceeding  pleasantness 
of  religion :  but  human  nature,  trained  in  the  school  of 
Christianity,  throws  away  as  false  the  delineation  of  piety 
in  the  disguise  of  Hebe,  and  declares  that  there  is  something 
higher  far  than  happiness ;  that  thought,  which  is  ever  full 
of  care  and  trouble,  is  better  far  ;  that  all  true  and  disinter- 
ested affection,  which  often  is  called  to  mourn,  is  better 
still ;  that  the  devoted  allegiance  of  conscience  to  duty  and 
to  God  —  which  ever  has  in  it  more  of  penitence  than  of 
joy  —  is  noblest  of  all.  If  happiness  means  the  satisfaction 
of  desire  (and  I  can  conceive  no  other  definition),  then 
there  is  necessarily  something  greater,  viz.,  religion,  which 
implies  constant  yearning  and  aspiration,  and  therefore  non- 
satisfaction  of  desire.  In  truth,  that  which  is  deemed  the 
happiest  period  of  life  must  pass  away,  before  we  can  sink 
into  the  deep  secrets  of  faith  and  hope.  The  primitive 
gladness  of  childhood  is  that  of  a  bounded  and  limited 
existence,  which  earnestly  wishes  for  nothing  that  exceeds 
the  dimensions  of  possibility,  —  of  a  human  Paradise,  about 
whose  enclosure-line  no  inquiry  is  made ;  and  through  sor- 
row and  the  sense  of  sin  we  must  issue  from  those  peaceful 
gates,  and  make  pilgrimage  amid  the  thistle  and  the  thorn 
instead  of  the  blossom  and  the  rose,  and  lie  panting  on  the 
dust,  instead  of  sleeping  on  the  green  sward,  of  life,  before 
we  learn  through  mortal  weakness  our  immortal  strength, 
and  feel  in  the  exile  of  the  earth  the  shelter  of  the  skies. 
Then,  however,  the  spirit  of  Christ,  the  man  of  sorrows, 
gives  us  a  re-birth  of  joy  through  tears.     Before,  we  were 


38  EDEN   AND  GETHSEMANE. 

simply  unheeding  of  death ;  then,  we  enter  into  the  con- 
sciousness of  immortality.  Before,  our  will  was  restrained 
by  a  law  which  we  could  not  keep ;  then,  it  is  emancipated 
by  a  fresh  love  that  more  than  keeps  it ;  whose  free  inclina- 
tion goes  before  all  precept  and  authoritative  faith ;  and 
hopeth  all  things,  believeth  all  things,  endureth  all  things  ; 
nay,  even  can  do  all  things,  through  the  Christ  that  strength- 
eneth  it. 

Children  then  of  nature,  we  are  also  sons  of  God ;  born 
of  the  genial  earth,  we  are  to  climb  the  glorious  heaven  ; 
and  to  the  human  lot  that  makes  us  of  one  blood  with 
Adam,  is  added  the  divine  liberty  of  being  of  one  spirit 
with  Christ.  That  liberty  we  cannot  decline,  for  we  are 
conscious  of  it  now  ;  and  if  we  look  not  on  it  as  on  the  face 
of  an  angel,  it  will  haunt  us  with  its  gaze  like  the  eye  of  a 
fiend.  The  severe  prerogatives  of  an  existence  half-divine 
are  ours.  To  wear  away  life  in  unproductive  harmlessness 
is  innocent  no  more  :  with  the  glory  we  take  the  cross ;  and, 
instead  of  slumbering  at  noon  in  Eden,  must  keep  the  mid- 
night watch  within  Gethsemane.  We,  too,  like  our  great 
leader,  must  be  made  perfect  through  suffering;  but  the 
struggle  by  night  will  bring  the  calmness  of  the  morning ;  the 
hour  of  exceeding  sorrow  will  prepare  the  day  of  godlike 
strength  ;  the  prayer  for  deliverance  calls  down  the  power 
of  endurance.  And  while  to  the  reluctant  their  cross  is  too 
heavy  to  be  borne,  it  grows  light  to  the  heart  of  willing 
trust.  The  faithful  heirs  of  "  the  man  of  sorrows,"  tran- 
scending the  trials  they  cannot  decline,  may  quit  the  world 
with  the  cry,  "  It  is  finished,"  and  pass  through  the  silence 
of  death  to  the  peace  of  God. 


SORROW  NO   SIN.' 


Luke  xxni.  28. 

BUT  JESUS,    TURNING  UNTO  THEM,   SAID,   DAUGHTERS    OF  JERUSALEM,   WEEP 
NOT   FOR  ME,   BUT  WEEP  FOR  YOURSELVES  AND   FOR  YOUR  CHILDREN. 

Christ  then  could  invite  to  tears,  —  to  tears  over  depart- 
ing excellence,  —  to  tears  which  men  idly  call  selfish, — 
tears  "  for  themselves  and  for  their  children."  He  whose 
mission  it  was  to  teach  the  paternity  of  Providence,  and 
the  serenity  of  the  immortal  hope;  he  who  himself  lived 
in  the  divinest  peace  which  they  can  give,  thought  it  no 
treason  to  these  truths  to  weep.  To  the  eye  of  the  Man  of 
Sorrows,  sorrow  was  no  sin  :  nor  did  he,  who  was  emphat- 
ically the  Son  of  God,  see,  in  even  the  passionate  utterance 
of  grief,  any  of  that  spirit  of  filial  distrust  towards  God  and 
reluctant  acceptance  of  his  will,  which  have  often  been 
charged  on  it  by  the  hard  and  cold  temper  of  his  followers. 
Religious  professors  have  put  their  own  congenial  interpre- 
tation on  the  morality  of  Christ ;  and  being  themselves  — 
but  too  frequently — unfeeling  and  unsocial  mystics,  they 
have  multiplied  the  penances  of  natural  emotion,  and  sub- 
limed from  the  gospel  its  pure  humanities.  If  we  accept 
their  representations,  our  religion  aims  to  cancel  our  natural 
affections,  and  substitute  others  at  variance  with  them  ;  the 
impulses  of  gladness  and  grief  are  alike  to  be  condemned, 
as  a  rebel  love  of  perishable  things ;  the  most  agitating  pas- 
sages of  our  being,  which  convulse  us  to  the  centre,  are  to 
be  met  with  a  rigid  and  tearless  piety ;  the  future,  though 
invisible  and  intangible,  though  approachable  only  by  kin- 


40  SORROW   NO   SIN. 

died  imagination,  is  to  be  acknowledged  as  the  only  region 
of  the  fair  and  good,  and  to  supersede  all  other  claims  upon 
our  desire  and  regard.  The  present,  though  the  intensest 
point  of  existence,  is  to  be  comparatively  unfelt ;  and  the 
past,  whereof  the  retrospect  is  sweet  and  solemn  to  the 
travelled  pilgrim,  —  the  history  of  childhood  and  its  unf or- 
gotten  friendships,' of  youth  and  its  unchecked  "aspirations, 
of  maturity  with  its  worn  yet  deeper  love,  its  more  crushing 
yet  worthier  anxieties,  its  purer  but  more  melancholy  wis- 
dom,—  all  this  because  it  is  human  and  not  divine,  of  earth 
and  not  of  heaven,  is  to  be  refused  the  tribute  of  a  sigh. 
For  my  own  part,  regarding  our  human  nature  as  the  image 
of  its  Divine  Parent,  and  in  nothing  more  truly  that  image 
than  in  the  impulses  of  its  disinterested  love,  I  bend  in  rev- 
erence before  the  emotions  of  every  melted  heart ;  believing 
this  present  life  to  be  the  worthy  childhood  of  futurity, 
conceiving  its  interests,  its  happiness,  to  be  substantially  the 
same,  but  framed  upon  a  smaller  scale  and  clouded  with  a 
deeper  shade,  I  see  in  its  history  nothing  trivial,  in  its 
events  nothing  contemptible,  in  its  vicissitudes  nothing 
unworthy  of  a  wise  man's  profoundest  thought.  And  tak- 
ing the  gospel  to  afford  a  promise,  not  of  the  extinction  of 
human  nature  in  heaven,  but  of  its  perpetuity,  —  an  assur- 
ance not  that  we  shall  be  converted  into  chill  and  pious 
phantoms,  but  simply  elevated  into  immortal  men,  —  I 
would  gather  from  that  hope  a  deeper  veneration  for  all  the 
pure  tastes  and  natural  feelings  of  a  good  mind ;  I  would 
maintain  the  sanctity  of  human  joy  and  human  grief ;  I 
would  protest  against  all  stern  censure  on  the  outbreaks  of 
true  sorrow ;  and  would  plead  that  to  mourn  —  ay,  and 
with  broken  spirit  —  the  departure  of  virtue  and  of  love, 
is  —  not  a  resistance  to  a  Father's  will,  not  an  oblivion  of 
his  providence,  not  the  expression  of  an  ignoble  selfishness, 
not  a  mistrust  of  a  restoring  heaven ;  but  only  a  fitting 
homage  to  God's  most  benignant  gifts,  the  grateful  glance  of 
a  loving  eye  on  blessings,  than  which  nothing  more  holy, 


SORROW   NO   SIN.  41 

more  peaceful,  more  exalting,  is  conferred  by  a  guardian 
benevolence  on  man. 

Those  who  blame  as  unchristian  the  deep  grief  which 
bereavement  awakens,  must  extend  their  disapprobation 
much  farther,  and  censure  all  strong  human  attachments. 
Sorrow  is  not  an  independent  state  of  mind,  standing 
unconnected  with  all  others.  It  could  not  be  cancelled 
singly,  leaving  all  other  qualities  of  our  nature  in  their 
integrity.  It  is  the  effect,  and  under  the  present  condi- 
tions of  our  being  the  inevitable  effect,  of  strong  affections. 
Nay,  it  is  not  so  much  their  result  as  a  certain  attitude  of 
those  affections  themselves.  It  not  simip\Y  flows  from  the 
love  of  excellence,  of  wisdom,  of  sympathy,  but  it  is  that 
very  love,  when  conscious  that  excellence,  that  wisdom,  that 
sympathy  have  departed.  The  more  intense  the  delight 
in  their  presence,  the  more  poignant  must  be  the  impres- 
sion of  their  absence  ;  and  you  cannot  destroy  the  anguish 
unless  you  forbid  the  joy.  Grief  is  only  the  memory  of 
widowed  affection  ;  and  nothing  but  a  draft  of  utter  obliv- 
ion could  lap  it  in  insensibility.  When  the  ties  of  strong 
and  refined  attachment  have  long  bound  us  to  a  home ; 
when  the  sympathies  of  those  who  share  with  us  that  home 
have  become  as  the  needful  light  to  our  daily  toil  and  the 
guardian  spirits  of  our  nightly  rest ;  when  years  have  passed 
on,  and  brought  us  many  a  sickness  banished  by  their  fidel- 
ity, many  a  danger  averted  by  their  counsels,  many  an 
anxiety  rendered  tolerable  by  their  participation ;  when 
often  they  too  have  gazed  on  us  from  the  bed  of  pain,  and 
threatened  to  depart,  but  we  have  been  permitted  to  rescue 
them  from  the  grave,  and  therein  have  doubled  all  our  ten- 
derness ;  when,  from  this  close  inspection  of  pure  hearts, 
we  have  learned  to  think  nobly  of  human  nature  and  hope- 
fully of  the  providence  of  God ;  when  their  voices,  common 
enough  to  other  ears,  but  fraught  to  us  with  unnumbered 
memories  of  life,  have  become  the  natural  music  of  the 
earth,  —  can  this  melody  be  silent,  can  these  virtues  depart, 


42  SORROW   NO  SIN. 

can  these  remembrances  be  deprived  of  their  living  centre, 
without  leaving  us  trembling  and  desolate  ?  Can  all  these 
fibres  of  our  life  be  thus  wrenched,  and  not  bleed  at  every 
pore  ?  And  to  forget,  —  it  cannot  be.  We  daily  pass 
through  places  which  are  the  shrine  of  a  thousand  recol- 
lections ;  we  are  startled  by  tones  which  pour  on  us  a  flood 
of  conviction ;  we  open  a  book,  and  there  is  the  very  name ; 
we  write  a  date,  and  it  is  an  anniversary.  These  associa- 
tions with  the  past  I  do  not  say  excite  sorrow,  but  to  an 
affectionate  mind  are  sorrow.  The  morality,  then,  which 
rebukes  sorrow  rebukes  love.  It  is  useless  expatiating  on 
the  evils  which  strong  grief  inflicts  on  ourselves  and  others : 
you  are  bound  to  show  that  the  affections,  of  which  it  is  an 
inseparable  form,  contain  no  counteracting  good  ;  that  it  is 
more  blessed,  more  holy,  to  freeze  up  the  springs  of  emo- 
tion, than  to  suffer  them  perennially  to  fertilize  our  nature, 
though  they  sometimes  deluge  it ;  that  it  is  better  to  keep 
loose  from  all  that  is  human,  and  love  nothing  that  we  may 
lose.  You  cannot  sever  them  :  grief  and  love  must  stay  or 
go  together.  And  who  can  doubt  that  that  is  the  truest 
duty  to  God,  which  permits  to  us  the  most  disinterested 
heart  for  each  other ;  that  the  purest  devotion  which  sanc- 
tifies and  not  chills  our  affections ;  that  the  most  genuine 
trust,  which  dares  to  cultivate  to  the  utmost  sympathies 
wounded  here  and  serenely  blest  only  hereafter ;  that  the 
most  filial  hope,  which,  regarding  the  brotherhood  of  man 
as  an  inference  from  the  paternity  of  God,  looks  to  heaven 
as  to  another  home  ? 

There  are  doubtless  cases  not  infrequent,  in  which  the 
mind  is  unduly  overpowered  by  affliction  ;  in  which  the 
tranquillity  of  the  reason  is  wholly  overset,  and  the  energy 
of  the  will  utterly  prostrated.  Here,  beyond  controversy, 
is  a  state  of  mind  morally  wrong ;  for  God  never  absolves 
us  from  our  duties,  however  he  may  sadden  them.  But  to 
rebuke  the  feelings  of  grief  in  such  a  case  is  to  cast  the  cen- 
sure in  the  wrong  place :  it  is  not  that  the  sorrow  is  exces- 


SOKBOW  NO   SIN.  43 

sive,  but  that  other  emotions  are  defective  in  their  strength. 
Nor  is  the  distinction  merely  verbal  and  trivial.  For  the 
natural  effect  of  such  misplaced  blame  surely  is,  that  the 
sufferer  will  endeavor  simply  to  abate  the  intensity  of  his 
sorrow,  to  extrude  from  his  mind  the  emotions  which  are 
charged  with  guilty  excess :  his  aim  will  be  purely  negative, 
not  to  think  so  fixedly,  not  to  feel  so  profoundly,  respecting 
the  bereavement  which  has  fallen  upon  his  life.  And  this 
aim  is  directed  to  an  end  both  undesirable  and  impractica- 
ble. It  is  undesirable  ;  for  to  touch  the  working  of  the 
affections  with  partial  torpor,  to  benumb  the  tenderness 
without  adding  to  the  energy  of  the  mind,  to  deaden  the 
susceptibility  of  memory  without  quickening  the  vividness  of 
hope,  would  surely  be  no  improvement  to  the  character ; 
it  would  be  a  mere  deduction  from  the  amount  of  mind  : 
and  sorrow  is  at  least  better  than  dulness  of  soul.  It  is, 
moreover,  impracticable ;  for  our  nature  affords  us  no 
means  of  exerting  a  negative  and  destructive  action  upon 
our  own  characters.  One  class  of  feelings  can  be  extin- 
guished only  by  the  creation  of  another ;  one  sentiment 
banished  only  by  inviting  the  antagonism  of  another ;  one 
interest  supplanted  only  by  the  stronger  occupancy  of 
another.  So  long  as  this  is  unperceived,  the  over-grieving 
heart  will  seek  in  vain  to  discipline  itself.  Thinking  of  its 
sorrow  as  too  much,  instead  of  its  sense  of  duty  as  too  little, 
it  fails  to  meet  pointedly  its  own  remedy.  The  will  feebly 
casts  about  its  efforts  in  the  dark  regions  of  the  mind ; 
wastes  its  vigor  in  trying  to  forget :  sometimes  fancies  for- 
ge tfulness,  then  pretends  it ;  assumes  a  hollow  tranquillity, 
and  affects  to  itself  and  others  an  interest  in  topics  and 
in  duties  which  are  not  truly  loved,  for  they  have  never 
been  truly  and  distinctly  sought.  From  all  such  aimless 
directions  of  the  will  there  arises  a  far  greater  evil  than 
simple  failure  ;  an  unconscious  insincerity  grows  up,  a  hazy 
perception  of  our  real  mental  condition,  a  confusion  of 
actual  and  fictitious  feelings,  of  emotions  which  we  merely 


44  SORROW   NO   SIN. 

imagine  with  those  which  we  truly  experience,  than  which 
few  states  of  character  can  be  more  perilous  to  moral  power 
and  progress.  The  wise  interpreter  of  his  own  nature 
will  let  his  mourning  affections  alone.  To  interfere  with 
them  would  be  wrestling  with  his  own  strength.  But  he 
will  draw  forth,  into  prominent  light,  sentiments  now 
sleeping  idly  in  the  shaded  recesses  of  his  mind.  He  will 
summon  up  the  sense  of  responsibility,  to  rouse  him  with 
the  spectacle  of  his  relations  to  God  his  father,  and  his 
brother,man;  to  recount  to  him  the  deeds  of  duty  and  the 
toils  of  thought,  which  are  yet  to  be  achieved  ere  life  is 
done ;  to  show  him  the  circle  of  high  faculties  which  the 
Creator  has  given  him  to  ennoble  and  refine  and  keep 
ready  for  a  world  where  thought  and  virtue  are  immor- 
talized. He  will  call  forth  his  affections  for  the  living 
who  surround  him,  and  whom  yet  it  is  his  happiness  to 
love,  and  his  obligation  to  bless.  And  these  sympathies 
will  be  fruitful  in  work  for  his  hands,  and  interests  re- 
freshing to  his  heart.  To  preserve  in  his  home  the  grace- 
ful order  of  pure  and  peaceful  affections  ;  to  omit  in  the 
world  no  delicate  attention  of  friendship ;  to  forget  not 
the  claims  of  poverty  and  ignorance  and  sin  to  the  com- 
passion of  all  who  would  be  faithful  to  their  kind,  —  here 
are  invitations  enough  to  the  aspirings  of  benevolence,  to 
bid  the  drooping  soul  look  up.  And  the  sufferer  will 
evoke  the  spirit  of  Christian  trust  and  hope.  For,  as  the 
memory  of  bereaved  affection  is  grief,  so  is  its  hope  the 
restorer  of  peace  :  from  the  past  is  forced  on  us  the  sense  of 
loss ;  from  the  future  rises  the  expectation  of  recovery :  in 
traversing  the  past,  our  thoughts  glide  along  a  procession 
of  dear  events  arrested  by  a  tomb;  in  conceiving  of  the 
future,  they  behold  the  same  events  opening  into  renewed 
being,  and  spreading  themselves  in  all  blessed  varieties 
along  the  vistas  of  interminable  life  :  the  sadnesses  of  each 
successive  point  of  remembrance  are  reversed,  its  losses 
regathered;  its  tears,  as  it  were,  unwept  before  the  smile 


SORROW  NO  SIN.  45 

of  God ;  its  plaints  unsung  amid  the  harmonies  of  heaven  ; 
its  sins  untwined  by  the  wounding  yet  healing  hand  of  an 
angel  penitence.  Invoke  the  spirit  of  this  trust ;  and,  though 
sorrow  may  not  dry  its  tears,  it  rises  to  a  dignity  above 
despair. 

It  is  not  unusual  to  speak  of  sorrow  for  the  dead  as 
expressing  a  distrust  of  the  providence  of  God,  and  a  doubt 
of  an  eternal  hereafter.  In  this,  however,  there  is  but 
little  truth.  True  it  is,  wherever  the  reason  actually  dis- 
believes the  great  facts  of  a  divine  government  and  hu- 
man immortality,  bereavement  must  indeed  fall  upon  the 
heart  with  terrific  weight.  It  is  then  a  blow  of  tyrannic 
fate,  a  visible  stroke  of  annihilation,  a  triumph  of  pure  and 
final  evil :  and  were  it  not  that  the  mind  of  hopeless  un- 
belief usually  permits  the  susceptibility  of  its  affections 
to  grow  dull,  and  seeks  protection  from  the  gloom  of  its 
thoughts  by  a  spontaneous  incasement  of  insensibility,  its 
impressions  from  death  would  be  appalling.  But,  though 
unbelief  may  be  a  natural  cause  of  uncontrolled  sorrow,  it 
by  no  means  follows  that  such  sorrow  implies  unbelief.  It 
is  easy  to  say  that  if  we  acknowledged  God  to  be  good 
in  all  his  dispensations,  and  trusted  in  some  blessed  spirit 
secreted  in  the  present  loss,  we  could  not  deeply  mourn.  I 
ask,  is  it  reasonable  to  expect  this  abstract  conviction  to 
overpower  a  visible  privation  ?  Assuage  and  sanctify  the 
grief  it  unquestionably  will ;  but  to  heal  entirely  is  beyond 
its  power.  The  vacancy  in  home  and  heart  is  a  thing 
felt ;  its  issue  in  good  is  a  thing  believed  in  and  imag- 
ined ;  that  the  blessings  of  the  past  are  gone  is  a  reality 
in  the  present ;  that  they  will  be  restored  is  as  yet  but  a 
vision  in  the  future.  The  degree  in  which  faith  imparts 
consolation  will  somewhat  depend  on  the  natural  vigor  of 
the  imaginative  faculty :  affliction  is  a  pressure  of  actual 
experience  ;  faith  is  a  series  of  mental  creations  ;  its  real- 
ities are  invisible  and  intangible ;  a  mind  bound  down  by 
the   chain  of  experience,  a   mind  whose  memory  is  more 


46  SORROW  NO   SIN. 

faithful  than  its  conceptions  are  excursive,  will  catch  but 
faint  and  distant  glimpses  of  the  blessed  idealities  of  hope. 
And  without  one  moment's  murmuring  against  the  benignity 
of  God,  or  doubt  respecting  his  promised  future,  such  a 
mind  may  be  ill  able  to  reach  the  ever-flowing  fountain  of 
his  peace. 

Nor  is  it  less  unjust  to  prefer  against  sorrow  for  the  dead 
the  charge  of  selfishness.  Selfish !  What,  that  pure  affec- 
tion bowed  and  broken  to  the  earth  !  yearning  only  to  dis- 
charge again,  were  it  possible,  but  the  humblest  service  of 
love !  What  would  it  not  do,  what  sacrifice  of  self  would  it 
not  make,  what  toils,  what  watching,  would  it  not  hold 
light,  might  it  be  permitted  to  perform  one  ofiice  for  the 
departed!  unseen,  unfelt,  unheard,  without  the  hope  of  a 
requiting  smile,  to  shed  on  that  spirit  one  silent  blessing ! 
Surely  this  insult  to  human  grief  must  be  the  invention  of 
cold  hearts,  needing  a  justification  for  their  own  insensi- 
bility. True  it  is,  there  is  no  need  to  mourn  for  those  who 
are  removed.  True  it  is,  we  weep  not  for  them,  but  for 
ourselves  and  for  our  children.  It  is  we  only  that  suffer 
and  are  sad.  But  emotions  are  not  selfish,  simply  because 
they  are  experienced  by  ourselves ;  were  it  so,  every  joy 
and  sorrow  would  be  branded  by  that  odious  name.  They 
are  selfish  only  when  they  are  full  of  the  idea  of  self,  when 
self  is  their  object  as  well  as  their  subject ;  when  they  tempt 
us  to  prefer  our  own  personal  and  exclusive  happiness  to 
that  of  others,  and  to  trample  on  a  brother's  feelings  in  the 
chase  after  our  own  good.  Of  this  there  is  nothing  in  the 
tears  of  bereavement :  they  are  the  tribute,  not  of  our  self- 
regarding  but  of  our  sympathetic  nature.  At  last,  indeed, 
when  the  burst  of  grief  has  had  its  natural  way,  they  lead 
us  to  a  generous  joy.  For,  as  we  weep,  we  think  how 
blessed  are  the  departed  who  "  rest  from  their  labors,  while 
their  works  do  follow  them : "  their  pure  hearts  jarred  no 
more  by  the  harshnesses  of  this  oft  discordant  life  ;  their 
earnest  minds  drinking  at  the  perennial  fount  of  truth ; 


SOBBOW  NO  SIN.  47 

their  frailties  cast  away  with  the  coil  of  mortality  they  have 
left  behind  ;  their  sainted  love  waiting  to  receive  us,  as  we 
too  may  one  by  one  pass  the  dark  limits  which  sever  us 
from  their  embrace,  and  seek  with  them  the  peace  and 
progress  of  the  skies. 


VI. 
CHRISTIAN  PEACE. 


John  xiv.  27. 

peace  i  leave  with  you :   my  peace  i  give  unto  you:  not  as  thb 
world  giveth,  give  i  unto  you. 

This  was  a  strange  benediction  to  proceed  from  the  Man  of 
Sorrows,  at  the  dreariest  moment  of  his  life,  —  strange  at 
least  to  those  who  look  only  to  his  outward  career,  his 
incessant  contact  with  misery  and  sin,  his  absolute  solitude 
of  purpose,  his  lot  stricken  with  sadness  ever  new  from  the 
temptation  to  the  cross ;  but  not  strange  perhaps  to  those 
who  heard  the  deep  and  quiet  tones  in  which  this  oracle  of 
promise  went  forth,  —  the  divinest  music  from  the  centre 
of  the  darkest  fate.  He  was  on  the  bosom  of  the  beloved 
disciple,  and  in  the  midst  of  those  who  should  have  cheered 
him  in  that  hour  with  such  comforts  as  fidelity  can  always 
offer ;  but  who,  failing  in  their  duty  to  his  griefs,  found  the 
sadness  creep  upon  themselves;  while  he,  seeking  to  give 
peace  to  them,  found  it  himself  profusely  in  the  gift.  It  was 
not  till  he  had  finished  this  interview  and  effort  of  affection, 
and  from  the  warmth  of  that  evening  meal  and  the  flush  of 
its  deep  converse  they  had  issued  into  the  chill  and  silent 
midnight  air ;  not  till  the  sanctity  of  moonlight  (never  to 
be  seen  by  him  again)  had  invested  him,  and  coarse  fatigue 
had  sunk  his  disciples  into  sleep  upon  the  grass,  that,  having 
none  to  comfort,  he  found  the  anguish  fall  upon  himself. 
Deprived  of  the  embrace  of  John,  he  flew  to  the  bosom  of 
the  Father ;  and,  after  momentary  strife,  recovered  in  trust 
the  serenity  he  had  found  in  toil :  and  while  his  followers 


CHRISTIAN  PEACE.  49 

lie  stretched  in  earthly  slumber,  he  reaches  a  divine  repose ; 
while  they,  yielding  to  nature,  gain  neither  strength  nor 
courage  for  the  morrow,  he,  through  the  vigils  of  agony, 
rises  to  that  godlike  power,  on  which  mockery  and  insult 
beat  in  vain,  and  which  has  made  the  cross,  —  then  the 
emblem  of  abjectness  and  guilt,  —  the  everlasting  symbol 
of  whatever  is  holy  and  sublime. 

The  peace  of  Christ  then  was  the  fruit  of  combined  toil 
and  trust ;  in  the  one  case  diffusing  itself  from  the  centre 
of  his  active  life,  in  the  other  from  that  of  his  passive  emo- 
tions ;  enabling  him  in  the  one  case  to  do  things  tranquilly, 
in  the  other  to  see  things  tranquilly.  Two  things  only  can 
make  life  go  wrong  and  painfully  with  us ;  when  we  suffer 
or  suspect  misdirection  and  feebleness  in  the  energies  of 
love  and  duty  within  us,  or  in  the  providence  of  the  world 
without  us :  bringing,  in  the  one  case,  the  lassitude  of  an 
unsatisfied  and  discordant  nature ;  in  the  other,  the  melan- 
choly of  hopeless  views.  From  these  Christ  delivers  us  by 
a  summons  to  mingled  toil  and  trust.  And  herein  does  his 
peace  differ  from  that  which  "  the  world  giveth,"  —  that  its 
prime  essential  is  not  ease,  but  strife;  not  self-indulgence, 
but  self-sacrifice ;  not  acquiescence  in  evil  for  the  sake  of 
quiet,  but  conflict  with  it  for  the  sake  of  God ;  not,  in  short, 
a  prudent  accommodation  of  the  mind  to  the  world,  but  a 
resolute  subjugation  of  the  world  to  the  best  conceptions 
of  the  mind.  Amply  has  the  promise  to  leave  behind  him 
such  a  peace  been  since  fulfilled.  It  was  fulfilled  to  the 
apostles  who  first  received  it ;  and  has  been  realized  again 
by  a  succession  of  faithful  men  to  whom  they  have  deliv- 
ered it. 

The  word  "  peace"  denotes  the  absence  of  jar  and  con- 
flict ;  a  condition  free  from  the  restlessness  of  fruitless  desire, 
the  forebodings  of  anxiety,  the  stings  of  enmity.  It  may 
be  destroyed  by  discordance  between  the  lot  without  and 
the  mind  within,  where  the  human  being  is  in  an  obviously 
false  position,  —  an  evil  rare  and  usually  self-curative ;  or 

4 


50  CHRISTIAN   PEACE. 

by  a  discordance  wholly  internal,  among  the  desires  and 
affections  themselves.  The  first  impulse  of  "  the  natural 
man  "  is  to  seek  peace  by  mending  his  external  condition  ; 
to  quiet  desire  by  increase  of  ease,  to  banish  anxiety  by 
increase  of  wealth,  to  guard  against  hostility  by  making 
himself  too  strong  for  it ;  to  build  up  his  life  into  a  fortress 
of  security  and  a  palace  of  comfort,  where  he  may  softly 
lie,  though  tempests  beat  and  rain  descends.  The  spirit  of 
Christianity  casts  away  at  once  this  whole  theory  of  peace ; 
declares  it  the  most  chimerical  of  dreams ;  and  proclaims 
it  impossible  ever  to  make  this  kind  of  reconciliation  between 
the  soul  and  the  life  wherein  it  acts.  As  well  might  the 
athlete  demand  a  victory  without  a  foe.  To  the  noblest 
faculties  of  soul,  rest  is  disease  and  torture.  The  under- 
standing is  commissioned  to  grapplfe  with  ignorance,  the 
conscience  to  confront  the  powers  of  moral  evil,  the  affec- 
tions to  labor  for  the  wretched  and  oppressed:  nor  shall 
any  peace  be  found  till  these,  which  reproach  and  fret  us 
in  our  most  elaborate  ease,  put  forth  an  incessant  and  satis- 
fying energy;  till,  instead  of  conciliating  the  world,  we 
vanquish  it;  and  rather  than  sit  still,  in  the  sickness  of 
luxury,  for  it  to  amuse  our  perceptions,  we  precipitate  our- 
selves upon  it  to  mould  it  into  a  new  creation.  Attempt 
to  make  all  smooth  and  pleasant  without,  and  you  thereby 
create  the  most  corroding  of  anxieties,  and  stimulate  the 
most  insatiable  of  appetites  within.  But  let  there  be  har- 
mony within,  let  no  clamors  of  self  drown  the  voice  which 
is  entitled  to  authority  there,  let  us  set  forth  on  the  mission 
of  duty,  resolved  to  live  for  it  alone,  to  close  with  every 
resistance  that  obstructs  it,  and  march  through  every  peril 
that  awaits  it :  and  in  the  consciousness  of  immortal  power, 
the  sense  of  mortal  ill  will  vanish,  and  the  peace  of  God 
wellnigh  extinguish  the  sufferings  of  the  man.  "  In  the 
world  we  may  have  tribulation ;  in  Christ  we  shall  have 
peace." 

This  peace,  so  remote  from  torpor,  —  arising  indeed  from 


CHRISTIAN   PEACE.  51 

the  intense  action  of  the  greatest  of  all  ideas,  those  of  duty, 
of  immortality,  of  God, — fell  according  to  the  promise  on 
the  first  disciples.  Not  in  vain  did  Jesus  tell  them  in  their 
sorrows  that  the  Comforter  would  come  :  nor  falsely  did 
he  define  this  blessed  visitant,  as  "  the  spirit  of  truth,"  —  the 
soul  reverentially  faithful  to  its  convictions,  and  expressing 
clearly  in  action  its  highest  aspirings.  Such  peace  had 
Stephen :  when  before  the  Sanhedrim  that  was  striving  to 
hush  up  the  recent  story  of  the  Cross,  he  proclaimed  aloud 
the  sequel  of  the  Ascension ;  and  priests  and  elders  arose 
and  stopped  their  ears  and  thrust  him  out  to  death;  —  he 
had  this  peace :  else  how,  —  if  a  heaven  of  divinest  tranquillity 
had  not  opened  to  him  and  revealed  to  him  the  proximity 
of  Christ  to  God,  —  how,  as  the  stones  struck  his  uncovered 
and  uplifted  head,  could  he  have  so  calmly  said,  "  Lord,  lay 
not  this  sin  to  their  charge  !  "  Such  peace  had  Paul,  —  at 
least  when  he  ceased  to  rebel  against  his  noble  nature,  and 
became,  instead  of  the  emissary  of  persecution,  the  ambas- 
sador of  God.  Was  there  ever  a  life  of  less  ease  and  se- 
curity, yet  of  more  buoyant  and  rejoicing  spirit,  than  his  ? 
What  weight  did  he  not  cast  aside,  to  run  the  race  that 
was  set  before  him  ?  What  tie  of  home  or  nation  did  he 
not  break,  that  he  might  join  in  one  the  whole  fiimily  of 
God  ?  For  forty  years  the  scoff  of  synagogues  and  the  out- 
cast of  his  people,  he  forgot  the  privations  of  the  exile  in 
the  labors  of  the  missionary;  flying  from  charges  of  sedition, 
he  disseminated  the  principles  of  peace ;  persecuted  from 
city  to  city,  he  yet  created  in  each  a  centre  of  pure  worship 
and  Christian  civilization,  and  along  the  coasts  of  Asia,  and 
colonies  of  Macedonia,  and  citadels  of  Greece,  dropped  link 
after  link  of  the  great  chain  of  truth  that  shall  »yet  embrace 
the  world.  Amid  the  joy  of  making  converts,  he  had  also 
the  affliction  of  making  martyrs ;  to  witness  the  sufferings, 
perhaps  to  bear  the  reproaches,  of  survivors ;  with  weeping 
heart  to  rebuke  the  fears,  and  sustain  the  faith  of  many  a" 
doubter ;  and  in  solitude  and  bonds  to  send  forth  the  effu- 


50  CHRISTIAN  PEACE. 

by  a  discordance  wholly  internal,  among  the  desires  and 
affections  themselves.  The  first  impulse  of  "  the  natural 
man  "  is  to  seek  peace  by  mending  his  external  condition  ; 
to  quiet  desire  by  increase  of  ease,  to  banish  anxiety  by 
increase  of  wealth,  to  guard  against  hostility  by  making 
himself  too  strong  for  it ;  to  build  up  his  life  into  a  fortress 
of  security  and  a  palace  of  comfort,  where  he  may  softly 
lie,  though  tempests  beat  and  rain  descends.  The  spirit  of 
Christianity  casts  away  at  once  this  whole  theory  of  peace ; 
declares  it  the  most  chimerical  of  dreams ;  and  proclaims 
it  impossible  ever  to  make  this  kind  of  reconciliation  between 
the  soul  and  the  life  wherein  it  acts.  As  well  might  the 
athlete  demand  a  victory  without  a  foe.  To  the  noblest 
faculties  of  soul,  rest  is  disease  and  torture.  The  under- 
standing is  commissioned  to  grapplfe  with  ignorance,  the 
conscience  to  confront  the  powers  of  moral  evil,  the  affec- 
tions to  labor  for  the  wretched  and  oppressed:  nor  shall 
any  peace  be  found  till  these,  which  reproach  and  fret  us 
in  our  most  elaborate  ease,  put  forth  an  incessant  and  satis- 
fying energy ;  till,  instead  of  conciliating  the  world,  we 
vanquish  it;  and  rather  than  sit  still,  in  the  sickness  of 
luxury,  for  it  to  amuse  our  perceptions,  we  precipitate  our- 
selves upon  it  to  mould  it  into  a  new  creation.  Attempt 
to  make  all  smooth  and  pleasant  without,  and  you  thereby 
create  the  most  corroding  of  anxieties,  and  stimulate  the 
most  insatiable  of  appetites  within.  But  let  there  be  har- 
mony within,  let  no  clamors  of  self  drown  the  voice  which 
is  entitled  to  authority  there,  let  us  set  forth  on  the  mission 
of  duty,  resolved  to  live  for  it  alone,  to  close  with  every 
resistance  that  obstructs  it,  and  march  through  every  peril 
that  awaits  it :  and  in  the  consciousness  of  immortal  power, 
the  sense  of  mortal  ill  will  vanish,  and  the  peace  of  God 
wellnigh  extinguish  the  sufferings  of  the  man.  "  In  the 
world  we  may  have  tribulation ;  in  Christ  we  shall  have 
peace." 

This  peace,  so  remote  from  torpor,  —  arising  indeed  from 


CHRISTIAN   PEACE.  51 

the  intense  action  of  the  greatest  of  all  ideas,  those  of  duty, 
of  immortality,  of  God,  —  fell  according  to  the  promise  on 
the  first  disciples.  Not  in  vain  did  Jesus  tell  them  in  their 
sorrows  that  the  Comforter  would  come  :  nor  falsely  did 
he  define  this  blessed  visitant,  as  "  the  spirit  of  truth,"  —  the 
soul  reverentially  faithful  to  its  convictions,  and  expressing 
clearly  in  action  its  highest  aspirings.  Such  peace  had 
Stephen :  when  before  the  Sanhedrim  that  was  striving  to 
hush  up  the  recent  story  of  the  Cross,  he  proclaimed  aloud 
the  sequel  of  the  Ascension ;  and  priests  and  elders  arose 
and  stopped  their  ears  and  thrust  him  out  to  death ;  —  he 
had  this  peace :  else  how,  —  if  a  heaven  of  divinest  tranquillity 
had  not  opened  to  him  and  revealed  to  him  the  proximity 
of  Christ  to  God,  —  how,  as  the  stones  struck  his  uncovered 
and  uplifted  head,  could  he  have  so  calmly  said,  "  Lord,  lay 
not  this  sin  to  their  charge  !  "  Such  peace  had  Paul,  —  at 
least  when  he  ceased  to  rebel  against  his  noble  nature,  and 
became,  instead  of  the  emissary  of  persecution,  the  ambas- 
sador of  God.  Was  there  ever  a  life  of  less  ease  and  se- 
curity, yet  of  more  buoyant  and  rejoicing  spirit,  than  his? 
What  weight  did  he  not  cast  aside,  to  run  the  race  that 
was  set  before  him  ?  What  tie  of  home  or  nation  did  he 
not  break,  that  he  might  join  in  one  the  whole  family  of 
God  ?  For  forty  years  the  scoff  of  synagogues  and  the  out- 
cast of  his  people,  he  forgot  the  privations  of  the  exile  in 
the  labors  of  the  missionary ;  flying  from  charges  of  sedition, 
he  disseminated  the  principles  of  peace ;  persecuted  from 
city  to  city,  he  yet  created  in  each  a  centre  of  pure  worship 
and  Christian  civilization,  and  along  the  coasts  of  Asia,  and 
colonies  of  Macedonia,  and  citadels  of  Greece,  dropped  link 
after  link  of  the  great  chain  of  truth  that  shall  »yet  embrace 
the  world.  Amid  the  joy  of  making  converts,  he  had  also 
the  aflliction  of  making  martyrs ;  to  witness  the  sufferings, 
perhaps  to  bear  the  reproaches,  of  survivors ;  with  weeping 
heart  to  rebuke  the  fears,  and  sustain  the  faith  of  many  a" 
doubter ;  and  in  solitude  and  bonds  to  send  forth  the  effu- 


52  CHRISTIAN  PEACE. 

sions  of  his  earnest  spirit  to  quicken  the  life,  and  renovate 
the  gladness,  of  the  confederate  churches.  Yet  when  did 
speculation  at  its  ease  ever  speak  with  vigor  so  noble,  and 
cheerfulness  so  fresh,  as  his  glorious  letters?  —  which  re- 
count his  perils  by  land  and  sea,  his  sorrows  from  friend 
and  foe,  and  declare  that  "none  of  these  things  move"  him; 
which  show  him  projecting  incessant  work,  yet  ready  for 
instant  rest;  conscious  that  already  he  has  fought  the  good 
fight,  and  willing  to  finish  his  course  and  resign  the  field ; 
but  prepared,  if  needs  be,  to  grasp  again  the  sword  of  the 
spirit,  and  go  forth  in  quest  of  wider  victories.  Does  any 
one  suppose,  that  it  would  have  been  more  peaceful  to  look 
back  on  a  life  less  exposed  and  adventurous?  —  on  a  lot  shel- 
tered and  secured?  on  soft-bedded  comfort,  and  unbroken 
plenty,  and  conventional  compliance  ?  No !  it  is  only  before- 
hand that  we  mistake  these  things  for  peace ;  in  the  retro- 
spect we  know  them  better,  and  would  exchange  them  all 
for  one  vanquished  temptation  in  the  desert,  for  one  patient 
bearing  of  the  cross !  What,  —  when  all  is  over,  and  we  lie 
upon  the  last  bed,  —  what  is  the  worth  to  us  of  all  our  guilty 
compromises,  of  all  the  moments  stolen  from  duty  to  be 
given  to  ease?  If  Paul  had  cowered  before  the  tribunal 
of  Nero,  and  trembled  at  his  comrades'  blood,  and,  instead 
of  baring  his  neck  to  the  imperial  sword,  had  purchased  by 
poor  evasions  another  year  of  life,  —  where  would  that  year 
have  been  now?  —  a  lost  drop  in  the  deep  waters  of  time, — 
yet  not  lost,  but  rather  mingled  as  a  poison  in  the  refresh- 
ing stream  of  good  men's  goodness  by  which  Providence 
fertilizes  the  ages. 

The  peace  of  Christ,  thus  inherited  by  his  disciples,  and 
growing  out  of  a  living  spirit  of  duty  and  of  love,  contrasts, 
not  merely  with  guilty  ease,  but  with  that  mere  mechanical 
facility  in  blameless  action  which  habit  gives.  There  is 
something  faithless  and'  ignoble  in  the  very  reasoning 
sometimes  employed  to  recommend  virtuous  habits.  They 
are  urged  upon  us,  because  they  smooth  the  way  of  right : 


CHRISTIAN   PEACE.  53 

we  are  invited  to  them  for  the  sake  of  ease.  Adopted  in 
such  a  temper,  duty  after  all  makes  its  bargain  with  indul- 
gence, and  is  not  yet  pursued  fpr  its  own  sake  and  with  the 
allegiance  of  a  loving  heart.  Moreover,  whoever  has  a 
true  conscience  sees  that  there  is  a  fallacy  in  this  persua- 
sion :  for,  whenever  habits  become  mechanical,  they  cease  to 
satisfy  the  requirements  of  duty ;  the  obligations  of  which 
enlarge  indefinitely  with  our  powers,  demanding  an  undi- 
minished tension  of  the  will,  and  an  ever-constant  life  of 
the  affections.  It  can  never  be,  that  a  soul  which  has  a 
heaven  open  to  its  view,  which  is  stationed  here,  not  simply 
to  accommodate  itself  to  the  arrangements  of  tins  world, 
but  also  to  school  itself  for  the  spirit  of  another,  is  intended 
to  rest  in  mere  automatic  regularities.  When  the  mind  is 
thrown  into  other  scenes,  and  finds  itself  in  the  society  of 
the  world  invisible,  suddenly  introduced  to  the  heavenly 
wise  and  the  sainted  good,  —  what  peace  can  it  expect  from 
mere  dry  tendencies  to  acts  no  longer  practicable,  and 
blameless  things  now  left  behind  ?  No  ;  it  must  have  that 
pure  love  which  is  nowhere  a  stranger,  in  earth  or  heaven ; 
that  vital  goodness  of  the  affections,  which  adjusts  itself  at 
once  to  every  scene  where  there  is  truth  and  holiness  to 
venerate ;  that  conscience,  wakeful  and  devout,  which 
enters  with  instant  joy  on  any  career  of  duty  and  progress 
opened  to  its  aspirations.  And  even  in  "the  life  that  now 
is,"  the  mere  mechanist  of  virtue,  who  copies  precepts  with 
mimetic  accuracy,  is  too  frequently  at  fault,  to  have  even 
the  poor  peace  which  custom  promises.  He  is  at  home  only 
on  his  own  beat.  An  emergency  perplexes  him,  and  too 
often  tempts  him  disgracefully  to  fly.  He  wants  the  inven- 
tiveness by  which  a  living  heart  of  duty  seizes  the  resources 
of  good,  and  uses  them  to  the  last ;  and  the  courage  by 
which  love,  like  honor,  starts  to  the  post  of  noble  danger, 
and  maintains  it  till,  by  such  fidelity,  it  becomes  a  place  of 
danger  no  more.  It  is  a  vain  attempt  to  comprise  in  rules 
and   aphorisms  all   the    various   moral   exigencies   of    life. 


5rt  CHRISTIAN   PEACE. 

Hardly  does  such  legality  suffice  to  define  the  small  portion 
of  right  and  wrong  contemplated  in  human  jurisprudence. 
But  the  true  instinct  of  a  pm-e  mind,  like  the  creative  genius 
of  art,  frames  rules  most  perfect  in  the  act  of  obeying  them, 
and  throws  the  materials  of  life  into  the  fairest  attitudes 
and  the  justest  proportions.  He  whose  allegiance  is  paid  to 
a  mere  preceptive  system  shapes  and  carves  his  duty  into 
the  homeliest  of  wooden  idols  :  he  who  has  the  spirit  of 
Christ  turns  it  into  an  image  breathing  and  divine.  Chil- 
dren of  God  in  the  noblest  sense,  we  are  not  without  some- 
thing of  his  creative  spirit  in  our  hearts.  The  power  is 
there,  to  separate  the  light  from  the  darkness  within  us, 
and  set  in  the  firmament  of  the  soul  luminaries  to  guide  and 
gladden  us,  for  seasons  and  for  years ;  power  to  make  the 
herbage  green  beneath  our  feet,  and  beckon  happy  creat- 
ures into  existence  around  our  path ;  power  to  mould  the 
clay  of  our  earthly  nature  into  the  likeness  of  God  most 
High  ;  and  thus  only  have  we  power  to  look  back  in  peace 
upon  our  work,  and  find  a  sabbath-rest  upon  the  thought, 
that,  morning  and  evening,  all  is  good. 

But  the  peace  which  Christ  felt  and  bequeathed  was  the 
result  of  trusty  no  less  than  of  toil.  However  immersed  in 
action,  and  engaged  in  enterprises  of  conscience,  every  life 
has  its  passive  moments,  when  the  operation  is  reversed ; 
and  power,  instead  of  going  from  us,  returns  upon  us,  and 
the  scenes  of  our  existence  present  themselves  to  us  as 
objects  of  speculation  and  emotion.  Sometimes  we  are 
forced  into  quietude  in  pauses  of  exhaustion  or  of  grief ; 
stretched  upon  the  bed  of  pain,  to  hear  the  great  world 
murmuring  and  rolling  by ;  or  lifted  into  the  watch-tower 
of  solitude,  to  look  over  the  vast  plain  of  humanity,  and 
from  a  height  that  covers  it  with  silence,  observe  its  groups 
shifting  and  traversing  like  spirits  in  a  city  of  the  dead.  At 
such  times,  our  peace  must  depend  on  the  view  under  which 
our  faith  or  our  fears  may  exhibit  this  mighty  "  field  of  the 
world  ;  "  on  the  forces  of  evil,  of  fortuity,  or  of  God,  which 


CHRISTIAN   PEACE.  55 

we  suppose  to  be  secretly  directing  the  changes  on  the 
scene,  and  calling  up  the  brief  apparition  of  generation  after 
generation.  And  so  great  and  terrible  is  the  amount  of 
evil,  physical  and  moral,  in  the  great  community  of  men  ; 
so  vast  the  numbers  sunk  in  barbarism,  compared  with  the 
few  who  more  nobly  represent  our  nature  ;  so  many  and 
piercing  (could  we  but  hear  them)  the  cries  of  unpitied 
wretchedness,  which,  with  every  beat  of  the  pendulum, 
wander  unnoticed  into  the  air ;  so  dense  the  crowds  that  are 
thrust  together  in  the  deepest  recesses  of  want,  and  that 
crawl  through  the  loathsome  hives  of  sin ;  that  only  two 
men  can  look  through  the  world  without  dismay :  he,  on 
the  one  hand,  who,  suffering  himself  to  be  bewildered  with 
momentary  horror,  and  in  the  confusion  of  his  emotions,  to 
mistake  what  he  sees  for  a  moral  chaos,  turns  his  back  in 
the  despair  of  fatalism,  crying,  "  Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for 
to-morrow  we  die ; "  and  he,  on  the  other,  who,  with  the 
discernment  of  a  deeper  wisdom,  penetrates  through  the 
shell  of  evil  to  the  kernel  and  the  seed  of  good  ;  who  per- 
ceives in  suffering  and  temptation  the  resistance  which 
alone  can  render  virtue  manifest,  and  conscience  great,  and 
existence  venerable  ;  who  recognizes,  even  in  the  gigantic 
growth  of  guilt,  the  grasp  of  infinite  desires,  and  the  per- 
version of  godlike  capacities ;  who  sees  how  soon,  were  God 
to  take  up  his  omnipotence,  and  snatch  from  his  creature 
man  the  care  of  the  world  and  the  work  of  self-perfection, 
all  that  deforms  might  be  swept  away,  and  the  meanest 
lifted  through  the  interval  that  separates  them  from  the 
noblest ;  and  who  therefore  holds  fast  to  the  theory  of  hope, 
and  the  kindred  duty  of  effort ;  takes  shelter  beneath  the 
universal  providence  of  God  ;  and  seeing  time  enough  in 
Ids  vast  cycles  for  the  growth  and  consummation  of  every 
blessing,  can  be  patient  as  well  as  trust;  can  resign  the 
selfish  vanity  of  doing  all  things  himself,  and  making  a  fin- 
ish before  he  dies ;  and  cheerfully  give  his  life  to  build  up 
the    mighty   temple    of    human    improvement,   though   no 


56  CHRISTIAN   PEACE. 

inscription  mark  it  for  glory,  and  it  be  as  one  of  the  hidden 
stones  of  the  sanctuary,  visible  only  to  the  eye  of  God. 
Such  was  the  spirit  and  the  faith  which  Jesus  left,  and  in 
which  his  first  disciples  found  their  rest.  Within  the  infini- 
tude of  the  divine  mercy  trouble  did  but  fold  them  closer  ; 
the  perversity  of  man  did  but  provoke  them  to  put  forth  a 
more  conquering  love  ;  and  though  none  were  ever  more 
the  sport  of  the  selfish  interests  and  prejudices  of  mankind, 
or  came  into  contact  with  a  more  desolate  portion  of  the 
great  wastes  of  humanity,  they  constructed  no  melancholy 
theories ;  but  having  planted  many  a  rose  of  Sharon,  and 
made  their  little  portion  of  the  desert  smile,  departed  in 
the  faith,  that  the  green  margin  would  spread  as  the  sea- 
sons of  God  came  round,  till  the  mantle  of  heaven  covered 
the  earth,  and  it  ended  with  Eden  as  it  had  begun. 

Between  these  two  sources  of  Christian  peace,  virtuous 
toil  and  holy  trust,  there  is  an  intimate  connection.  The 
desponding  are  generally  the  indolent  and  useless ;  not  the 
tried  and  struggling,  but  speculators  at  a  distance  from 
the  scene  of  things,  and  far  from  destitute  of  comforts 
themselves.  Barren  of  the  most  blessed  of  human  sympa- 
thies, strangers  to  the  light  that  best  glnddens  the  heart  of 
man,  they  are  without  the  materials  of  a  bright  and  hopeful 
faith.  But  he  who  consecrates  himself  sees  at  once  how 
God  may  sanctify  the  world ;  he  whose  mind  is  rich  in  the 
memory  of  moral  victories  will  not  easily  believe  the  world 
a  scene  of  moral  defeats ;  nor  was  it  ever  known  that  one 
who,  like  Paul,  labored  for  the  good  of  man,  despaired  of 
the  benevolence  of  God. 

Whoever  then  would  have  the  peace  of  Christ,  let  him 
seek  first  the  spirit  of  Christ.  Let  him  not  fret  against  the 
conditions  which  God  assigns  to  his  being,  but  reverently 
conform  himself  to  them,  and  do  and  enjoy  the  good  which 
they  allow.  Let  him  cast  himself  freely  on  the  career  to 
which  the  secret  persuasion  of  duty  points,  without  reserva- 
tion of  happiness   or   self ;  and   in   the   exercise  which  its 


CHRISTIAN   PEACE.  67 

difficulties  give  to  his  understanding,  its  conflicts  to  his  will, 
its  humanities  to  his  affections,  he  shall  find  that  united 
action  of  his  whole  and  best  nature,  that  inward  harmony, 
that  moral  order,  which  emancipates  from  the  anxieties  of 
self,  and  unconsciously  yields  the  divinest  repose.  The 
shadows  of  darkest  affliction  cannot  blot  out  the  inner 
radiance  of  such  a  mind ;  the  most  tedious  years  move 
lightly  and  with  briefest  step  across  its  history ;  for  it  is 
conscious  of  its  immortality,  and  hastening  to  its  heaven. 
And  there  shall  its  peace  be  consummated  at  length  ;  its 
griefs  transmuted  into  delicious  retrospects ;  its  affections 
fresh  and  ready  for  a  new  and  nobler  career  ;  and  its  praise 
confessing  that  this  final  "  peace  of  God  "  doth  indeed  "  sur- 
pass its  understanding." 


60  RELIGION   ON   FALSE   PRETENCES. 

scend  to  plead  for  it  thus ;  and  go  ignominiously  round, 
supplicating  votes,  in  its  behalf,  for  the  vacant  office  of 
Master  of  Police !  What  sort  of  obedience  is  likely  to  be 
rendered  to  a  creature  of  our  own  appointment,  chosen 
from  prudence,  and  removable  at  pleasure  ?  Nothing  can 
be  more  evident  than  that  such  advocates  are  thinking  only 
of  restraining  others^  and  are  by  no  means  filled  with  the 
idea  of  submission  themselves.  A  heart  occupied  and  soft- 
ened by  the  genuine  spirit  of  allegiance  will  make  a  quite 
different  appeal ;  will  never  dream  that  any  suffrage  can 
add  authority  to  the  faith  that  rules  it  rightly ;  will  perhaps 
think  it  somewhat  irreligious  for  even  the  most  important 
persons  to  offer  to  the  Almighty  the  weight  of  their  great 
influence  ;  and  will  feel  that  things  divine  are  so  much 
higher  than  things  serviceable,  that  to  recommend  them  for 
their  use  is  to  deny  their  essence  and  disown  their  obliga- 
tion. Nay,  does  not  a  secret  voice  assure  us  all,  tliat  short 
of  the  sacrifice  of  self-will,  and  the  cheerful  movement 
within  the  limits  of  a  supreme  law,  there  is  not  even  the 
faint  beginning  of  religion ;  and  that  this  concern  for  the 
common  good,  this  idea  of  giving  a  sanction  to  the  claims 
of  piety,  is  an  evasion  of  that  personal  surrender,  which  it  is 
so  easy  to  approve  in  others,  so  hard  to  achieve  within  our- 
selves? This  temper  feels  as  if  it  were  outside  the  great 
and  solemn  conditions  of  humanity,  and  in  concern  for 
others'  exposure  to  them  lapses  into  forgetfulness  itself  ;  as 
if  it  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  strife  of  temptation,  and 
the  toil  of  duty,  and  the  cry  of  grief.  The  complacent 
patron  of  religion,  —  will  he  not  die?  will  he  not  go,  all 
alone,  into  the  silence  of  eternity,  and  personally  look  into 
the  reality  of  those  things  of  which  he  has  always  helped  to 
keep  up  the  show?  Will  he  not  stand  face  to  face  with  the 
God  whose  service  he  has  liberally  encouraged  ?  —  empty, 
it  is  to  be  feared,  of  the  only  offering  which  he  could 
tranquilly  present,  —  the  offer  of  himself;  and  thrown  upon 
the  Infinite,  not  as  a  child  upon  a  parent's  bosom,  but  as  a 


EELIGION  ON   FALSE   PRETENCES.  61 

peniteDt  in  abasement  before  the  Judge  ?  —  Nor  does  this 
seem  so  distant,  that  there  is  much  time  to  play  at  pretences 
with  it  in  the  meanwhile.  As  sure  as  this  world  is  swim- 
ming fast  through  space  and  time,  we  are  all  afloat  in  the 
same  life-vessel,  and  have  moreover  a  voyage  before  us,  of 
which  even  the  stoutest  heart  may  well  think  in  earnest. 

I  do  not,  of  course,  mean  that  religious  faith  does  not 
conduce  to  the  moral  order  of  society ;  or  that  estimable 
men  may  not  innocently  be  aware  of  this  and  reckon  on  it. 
But  I  do  say,  that  it  is  not  upon  this  that  the  obligatory 
character  of  religion  rests  ;  that  this  social  action  is  not  the 
source,  but  the  effect,  of  its  binding  authority  upon  the 
mind  ;  and  that  to  look  first  to  its  benefits,  and  then  to  its 
sanctity,  is  to  invert  the  true  order  of  our  moral  life,  and 
set  the  pyramid  of  duty  upon  its  point  rather  than  its  base. 
If  the  great  principles  of  religion  were  false,  if  it  were  all 
a  fiction  that  we  lived  under  a  God  and  in  front  of  a  heaven, 
it  is  obvious  that  these  beliefs  would  have  no  claim  upon 
us;  that  their  relation  to  our  conscience  would  even  be 
reversed ;  and  that  whatever  support  they  might  appear  to 
afford  to  the  laws  of  rectitude  and  peace,  our  sole  duty  to 
them,  as  delusions,  would  be  to  expose  and  expel  them ; 
the  looser  dictates  of  expediency  yielding  at  once  to  the 
severer  rule  of  veracity.  And  it  is  therefore  not  in  their 
usefulness,  but  in  their  truth,  that  their  authority  resides ; 
it  is  with  that  alone  that  our  allegiance  to  them  must  stand 
or  fall ;  to  that  alone  that  our  souls  are  permitted  to  bow ; 
nay,  on  that  alone  that  all  their  moral  excellence  depends. 
A  devout  man  does  his  duty  better  than  another,  because  he 
sees  his  position  more  completely  ;  gazes  over  the  wide  field 
of  his  relations  visible  and  invisible  ;  exaggerates  nothing 
from  its  proximity,  and  overlooks  nothing  from  its  distance ; 
but,  with  the  clear  sense  of  moral  proportion,  receives  from 
all  the  true  impression,  and  gives  to  all  the  fit  affection. 
He  does  not  render  his  mental  view  false  by  ignoring  the 
whole  region  that  lies  beyond  experience,  and  treating  it  as 


62  EELIGION   ON   FALSE   PRETENCES. 

if  it  had  no  existence  ;  or  fever  his  passions  and  fret  away 
his  peace  by  imprisoning  the  whole  energies  of  his  nature 
within  some  narrow  object,  —  a  section  only  of  the  life 
which  they  are  qualified  to  fill.  It  is  because  his  mind  is 
right,  that  his  hand  does  right. 

The  same  insult  which  is  committed  against  religion  by 
representing  it  as  the  tool  of  social  order  is  repeated,  when 
it  is  prescribed  as  the  only  means  of  finding  any  semblance 
of  comfort  in  circumstances  otherwise  desperate.  No  one 
can  be  ignorant  that  it  is  frequently  exhibited  in  this  light ; 
and  that  men  are  advised  to  lay  by  a  prudent  store  of  it,  as 
a  resource  of  happiness  during  the  dreary  winter  of  distress. 
Nothing  can  be  more  true  to  nature  than  the  fact  alleged  : 
nothing  more  false  than  the  exhortation  founded  on  it. 
Certain  it  is,  there  is  no  real  conquest  of  evil,  except  by  the 
devout  mind,  that  can  bleed  beneath  the  thorny  lot,  yet 
clasp  it  in  closer  love,  like  the  piercing  crucifix  of  self-morti- 
fication upon  the  breast.  Certain  it  is,  that  a  pure  trust, 
defying  nothing  that  is  sent  of  God,  but  bending  with  self- 
renunciation  before  his  whirlwinds  sweeping  by,  feels  least 
resistance  of  terrible  necessity  chafing  against  its  peace. 
But  in  mere  cupidity  for  the  comforts  of  faith  there  is  no 
religion,  —  on  the  contrary,  the  total  privation  of  all  relig- 
ion :  there  is  precisely  that  deliberate  reservation  of  self, 
that  fencing  of  it  round  against  the  assaults  of  unhappiness, 
that  mere  service  for  hire,  in  which  is  the  very  essence  of 
disloyalty  to  Heaven.  Nor  does  God  ever  award  the  least 
success  to  these  insurance  speculations  on  his  service  ;  and 
only  those  who  give  themselves  up  to  him  without  a  ques- 
tion find  their  happiness  returned.  Yain  every  way  are  all 
these  attempts  to  make  that  which  is  divine  subordinate  to 
our  personal  ends :  we  only  bring  down  the  awful  rebuke, 
"  Ye  have  not  chosen  me,  but  I  have  chosen  you." 

Religion  again  is  often  represented,  not  exactly  as  the 
instrument  for  producing  good  morals,  but  as  in  fact  the 
very  same  with  good  morals.     We  hear  the  sentiment  con- 


RELIGION   ON   FALSE   PRETENCES.  63 

stantly  repeated,  that,  after  all,  the  service  of  man  is  the 
truest  service  of  God.  Now  if  this  maxim  mean  that  so 
long  as  human  good  is  effected,  it  does  not  signify  on  what 
principles  it  is  done,  no  statement  could  well  be  more  false. 
Let  us  only  see.  Here  is  a  man,  who  serves  the  common- 
wealth from  ambition,  and  merits  the  good-will  of  his  neigh- 
bors, that  he  may  mount  by  it.  He  selects  some  conspicuous  ^ 
utility,  labors  at  it  visibly  enough,  and  defends  himself  from 
the  aversion  of  the  few  by  surrounding  himself  with  the 
plaudits  of  the  many :  and  if  you  look  at  him,  busy  before 
the  face  of  his  community,  you  will  not  fail  to  see  the  man- 
ner of  his  diligence ;  that  in  proportion  as  they  raise  the 
shout,  he  prosecutes  the  work ;  that  when  they  are  tired,  he 
grows  idle ;  and  when  they  can  lift  their  voices  no  higher, 
and  no  more  can  be  gained  by  laboring  for  their  good,  either 
he  begins  to  toil  in  the  opposite  direction,  or,  throwing 
down  all  implements  of  work,  gives  himself  up  to  strange 
gambols,  at  which  the  spectators  who  have  exhausted  all 
their  praise  may  at  least  gratify  him  by  being  astonished. 
Here  is  another  man,  smitten,  we  will  say,  with  honest  pity 
for  the  degradation  and  misery  of  the  great  mass  of  every 
,  civilized  society  ;  indignant,  it  may  be  (who  can  help  it  ?  ), 
that  all  citizens  have  not  enough  food  and  enough  knowl- 
edge ;  studious  of  the  economic  causes  which  interfere  with 
such  a  result ;  but  unhappily  seeing  no  farther  than  the 
mere  sentient  and  intellectual  man,  and  possibly  dreaming 
that  their  oppression  and  wretchedness  have  been  aggra- 
vated, instead  of  assuaged,  by  the  restraints  of  the  moral 
and  the  aspirations  of  the  spiritual  nature.  You  see  him, 
accordingly,  —  a  benignant  thinking  animal,  —  enthusiasti- 
cally devoted  to  projects  for  making  the  life  of  man  com- 
fortable, intelligent,  and  clean ;  primarily  impressed  with 
the  necessity  of  increasing  the  productiveness  of  the  earth, 
and  therefore  secondarily  with  the  importance  of  improv- 
ing man  as  the  producing  instrument ;  trusting  to  a  preter- 
natural development  of  the  physical  and  rational  faculties  to 


64  BELIGION   ON   FALSE   PRETENCES. 

supply  some  adequate  counterfeit  of  moral  order,  that  may 
look  the  same  from  outside  the  heart;  transferring  to  per- 
sonal interest  the  venerated  dress  and  badges  of  duty,  but 
really  disowning  any  law  higher  than  the  collective  forces 
of  self-will ;  loosening  any  particular  ties  with  which  the 
feelings  of  mankind  have  connected  a  peculiar  sacredness ; 
and  suppressing,  as  an  unmeaning  weakness,  any  sentiment 
above  that  of  obtuse  submission,  in  case  of  accident,  to  the 
operation  of  crushing  and  fracture  by  the  disordered  mech- 
anism of  nature.  And  once  at  least  there  has  been  a  Cheist  ; 
not  seeking  to  thrust  up  human  nature  from  below,  but  to 
raise  it  from  above ;  knowing  that  its  earth  could  produce 
nothing,  except  for  its  pure  and  spreading  heaven  ;  and  so, 
coming  down  upon  it,  as  an  angel  soul  from  the  highest 
regions  of  the  spirit ;  speaking  seldom  to  it  of  its  happiness, 
constantly  of  its  holiness ;  dwelling  little  on  the  arrange- 
ments, and  much  on  the  responsibilities  of  life ;  pitying  its 
woes,  as  it  pities  them  itself  in  moments  of  truest  aspiration, 
not  with  mere  nervous  sympathy,  but  with  godlike  and 
healing  mercy ;  assuming  its  place  in  the  midst  of  God,  and 
on  the  surface  of  eternity,  and  from  this  sublime  position  as 
a  base  computing  its  obligations  and  uttering  oracles  of  its 
destiny.  Which  now  of  these  three,  do  you  think,  is  truly 
neighbor  to  our  poor  nature,  wounded  and  bleeding  by  the 
way?  Which  of  them  has  really  tended  and  restored  it 
from  being  half  dead  ?  It  is  impossible  to  deny  to  even  the 
least  worthy  of  them  the  praise  of  rendering  service  to  man 
—  but  can  we  say  of  them  all  that  there  is  a  service  of  God? 
Are  all  felt  to  be  equally  noble  and  venerable  ?  or  do  we 
measure  our  reverence  for  them  by  the  scale  and  service  of 
their  operation?  Is  it  not  rather  the  different  princi2yle 
which  is  at  the  root  of  each  that  determines  the  sentiment 
we  direct  towards  them  ?  No  one,  I  believe,  sincerely  feels 
that  the  simply  humane  and  prosaic  view  of  life  and  men, 
such  as  a  naturalist  or  statist  might  take,  is  as  true  and  high 
a  source  of  benevolent  action  as  the  reverential  and  divine, 


RELIGION   ON  FALSE  PRETENCES.  65 

that  commences  with  the  spiritual  relations,  and  thence 
descends  to  the  economy  of  the  outward  lot.  If  then  the 
maxim,  that  the  service  of  men  is  the  truest  service  of  God, 
is  adduced  to  excuse  the  indifference  of  many  an  amiable 
heart  to  the  great  truths  of  faith,  and  to  palliate  the  defects 
of  a  merely  ethical  benevolence  ;  if  it  is  the  plea  of  social 
kindness  to  be  let  alone  on  the  subject  of  diviner  obliga- 
tions, —  it  cannot  be  admitted.  But  as  self-justification  is 
seldom  deficient  in  ingenuity,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  this 
aphorism  is  unquestionably  true ;  in  which  indeed  it  does 
but  contain  the  sentiment  of  the  apostle  :  "  He  that  loveth 
not  his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen,  how  can  he  love  God 
whom  he  hath  not  seen?"  From  the  love  of  man  we  do 
not  necessarily  rise  into  the  love  of  God  ;  but  from  any  true 
love  of  God  we  inevitably  descend  into  the  love  of  man,  — 
his  child,  his  image,  the  object  of  his  benediction,  and  the 
sharer  of  his  immortality.  N"or  is  this  maxim  without  an 
important  application  to  our  moral  estimates  of  others^ 
whose  acts  alone  are  exposed  to  view,  and  of  whose  secret 
motives  and  affections  we  cannot  take  cognizance.  Wher- 
ever we  see  in  our  fellow-men  the  outward  life  which  may 
possibly  be  the  fruit  of  religious  principle,  though  perhaps 
explicable  as  some  inferior  growth,  we  have  certainly  no 
right  to  deny  the  existence  of  the  nobler  root;  but  must 
accept  their  service  of  man  as  presumption  of  their  fidelity 
to  God.  I  only  protest  against  that  self -flattery,  which  per- 
mits our  good-nature  towards  earth  to  lull  to  sleep  our 
aspirations  to  heaven. 

Another  spurious  form  of  religion  is  discerned  among 
those  who  regard  it  as  an  indispensable  ornament  of  char- 
acter; who  speak  much  of  the  incompleteness  of  human 
nature  without  it;  and  plead  the  claims  of  piety  on  the 
ground  that  it  is  an  offence  against  mental  symmetry  to  be 
without  it.  The  most  palpable  exhibition  of  this  imitation 
of  faith  is  found  among  those  who,  after  craniological 
research,  conceive  that  they  have  discovered  a  certain  cere- 


66  BELIGION   ON   FALSE   PRETENCES. 

bral  provision  for  a  god ;  and  who  therefore  conclude  that 
the  culture  of  devotion  is  necessary  to  physiological  consist- 
ency. They  speak  at  large  of  man's  need  of  a  religion,  of 
his  unsatisfied  wants  without  it ;  of  the  grace  which  it  adds 
to  his  moral  stature,  the  dignity  it  gives  to  his  affections, 
the  power  which  it  administers  to  his  will :  and  then  they 
issue  orders  to  their  ingenuity  to  devise  a  religion  suitable 
to  this  discovered  want,  precisely  adapted  to  the  cravings 
of  this  appetite.  Alas !  however,  this  is  not  the  way  in 
which  a  religion  can  be  found  :  it  cannot  by  any  skill  be 
thus  carved  and  constructed  according  to  measurements 
taken  on  purpose  from  our  nature.  It  is  easy  indeed  to 
imagine  and  invent  a  faith,  seemingly  just  fitted  to  our 
wants ;  but  then  comes  the  question,  How  are  we  to  get  it 
believed P  And  here,  it  is  to  be  feared,  is  the  failure  of  this 
school :  they  seem  to  have  m®re  faith  in  the  religiousness  of 
man,  than  in  the  reality  of  God.  The  same  danger  attends 
the  idea,  wherever  found,  of  aiming  constantly  at  our  own 
self-perfection,  and,  under  the  influence  of  this  aim,  striving 
to  put  the  last  and  saintly  finish  of  a  pure  devotion  to  our 
character.  Surely  there  is  something  unsound  and  morbid 
in  thus  resolving  the  whole  idea  of  obligation  and  truth  into 
that  of  beauty.  As  long  as  we  are  but  painting  our  own 
ideal  portrait,  we  can  produce  no  living  and  substantial 
goodness,  but  a  mere  canvas  thing  of  surface  dimension 
only.  Human  character  and  life  are  something  more  than 
mere  matters  of  taste  and  propriety ;  and  will  attain  to 
nothing  excellent  till  they  are  regarded  in  the  spirit  of  an 
earnest  reality.  Devotion  can  find  no  firm  foundation  in 
the  notion  of  its  relative  fitness  to  us,  but  must  feel  its  foot 
on  the  absolute  truth  of  its  glorious  and  sublime  objects. 
All  else  is  abhorrent  from  the  pure  simplicity  of  faith,  and 
tends  only  to  foster  an  indifference  to  truth,  and  an  affecta- 
tion of  religion.  God,  refusing  to  be  discerned  through 
the  impure  eye  of  expediency,  reveals  himself  only  to  our 
inward  intuitions  of  conscience.     The  piety  that  loves  him 


RELIGION   ON   FALSE   PRETENCES.  67 

will  recognize  no  third  thing  between  yea  and  no.  To 
assume  his  reality,  because  the  hypothesis  seems  to  open 
the  best  training-school  for  our  human  nature  ;  to  treat  the 
highest  of  all  things  as  true,  only  because  we  want  it  to  be 
true,  and  shall  be  the  better  for  it  if  it  is,  —  what  is  this  but, 
under  decent  disguise,  the  French  philosopher's  character- 
istic exclamation,  "If  there  were  not  a  God,  we  should 
have  to  invent  one."  To  an  earnest  mind  this  air  of  protec- 
tion and  appropriation  towards  things  divine  and  holy  is 
unspeakably  offensive.  It  is  for  God  to  rule  and  guard  our 
conscience,  not  for  our  conscience  to  take  care  of  God.  And 
to  every  pure  submissive  mind  his  voice  within  is  heard 
rebuking  this  presumptuous  spirit,  and  repeating  the  words 
of  Christ :  "  Ye  have  not  chosen  me,  but  I  have  chosen 
you." 


VIII. 
MAMMON-WORSHIP. 


Matthew  vi.  28. 

consider  the  lilies  of  the  field,  ho"w  they  grow;  they  toil  not, 
neither  do  they  spin  ;  and  yet  i  say  unto  you,  that  solomon,  in 
all  his  glory,  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these. 

In  no  time  or  country  has  Christianity  ever  been  exhibited 
in  its  simple  integrity.  The  soul  of  its  author  was  the  only 
pure  and  perfect  expression  of  its  spirit :  it  was  at  once  the 
creature  and  the  sole  director  of  his  mind ;  —  born  within 
that  palace  to  be  its  Lord.  In  every  other  instance  Chris- 
tianity has  been  only  one  out  of  many  influences  concerned 
in  forming  the  character  of  its  professors  ;  and  they  have 
given  it  various  shapes,  according~to  the  climate,  the  society, 
the  occupations  in  which  they  have  lived.  The  prejudices 
and  passions  of  every  community,  —  the  inevitable  growth 
of  its  position,  —  have  weakened  its  religion  and  morality 
in  some  points,  and  strengthened  them  in  others.  So  that 
all  particular  Christianities  are  distortions  of  the  great  origi- 
nal :  like  paintings  placed  in  a  false  light ;  or  rather  like 
those  grotesque  images  seen  in  the  concave  surfaces  of 
things,  which,  —  lengthen  or  shorten  as  they  may,  —  spoil 
the  beauty  that  depends  upon  proportion.  The  student  will 
find  in  his  religion  the  nutriment  of  divinest  speculation,  — 
the  tenets  of  a  sublime  philosophy  in  which  heaven  resolves 
the  great  problems  of  duty,  fate,  and  futurity;  and  when 
his  genius  soars  to  the  highest  heaven  of  invention,  he  feels 
that  he  is  borne  upon  his  faith  as  on  eagle's  wings.  The 
patriot,  cast  on  evil  times,  without  a  glimpse  of  these  con- 
templative subtleties,  sees  in  it  the  law  of  liberty,  —  hears 


MAMMON- WOESHIP.  69 

in  it  a  clear  call,  as  from  the  trump  of  God,  to  vindicate  the 
rights  of  the  oppressed :  he  delights  to  read  how  Christ 
provoked  bigots  to  gnash  their  teeth  with  rage,  and  Paul 
proclaimed  that  of  one  blood  were  all  nations  made.  The 
peasant  lays  to  heart  its  mercy  to  the  poor,  and  its  promise 
to  the  good.  The  merchant  takes  it  as  the  root  of  upright- 
ness :  the  artist  visits  it  as  the  source  of  moral  beauty  the 
most  divine.  The  system  is  edited  anew  in  the  mind  of 
every  class. 

We  live  in  a  country  whose  national  character  is  very- 
marked,  and  on  whose  people  certain  prevailing  habits  and 
employments  are  imposed  by  a  peculiar  soil,  a  northern 
climate,  and  an  insular  position.  Various  causes,  both  social 
and  political,  are  filling  England  more  and  more  with  a 
manufacturing  and  mercantile  population.  The  fact,  taken 
in  all  its  connections,  is  by  no  means  to  be  deplored  ;  and  in 
various  ways  comprises  in  it  auguries  of  vast  good.  But 
in  the  meanwhile  it  is  attended  with  this  particular  result : 
that  the  spirit  of  gain  is  ascendant  over  every  other  passion 
and  pursuit  by  which  men  can  be  occupied.  Not  pleasure, 
not  art,  not  glory,  can  beguile  our  people  from  their  profits. 
War  was  their  madness  once ;  but  the  temple  of  Moloch  is 
deserted,  and  morning  and  evening  the  gates  of  Mammon 
are  thronged  now.  There  is  the  idol  from  whose  seductions 
our  Christianity  has  most  to  fear.  Without  indulging  in 
any  sentimental  declamation  against  the  pursuit  and  influ- 
ence of  wealth,  we  may  be  permitted  to  feel  that  this  is  the 
quarter  from  which,  specifically,  our  moral  and  religious 
affections  are  most  in  danger  of  being  vitiated.  The  habits 
which  produce  the  danger  may  be  inevitable,  forced  upon 
us  by  a  hard  social  necessity:  still  in  bare  self-knowledge 
there  is  self-protection.  For,  the  danger  of  a  vice  is  not  like 
the  danger  of  a  pestilence,  in  which  the  most  unconscious 
are  the  most  safe  :  the  fear  of  contagion,  which,  in  the  one 
case  absorbs  the  poison  into  the  veins  of  the  body,  repulses 
in  the  other  the  temptation  from  the  mind. 


70  MAMMON-WOBSHIP. 

The  excess  to  which  this  master-passion  is  carried  per- 
verts our  just  and  natural  estimate  of  happiness.  It  cannot 
be  otherwise  when  that  which  is  but  a  means  is  elevated 
into  the  greatest  of  ends ;  when  that  which  gives  command 
over  some  physical  comforts  becomes  the  object  of  intenser 
desire  than  all  blessings  intellectual  and  moral,  and  we  live 
to  get  rich,  instead  of  getting  rich  that  we  may  live.  The 
mere  lapse  of  years  is  not  life :  to  eat  and  drink  and  sleep  ; 
to  be  exposed  to  the  darkness  and  the  light ;  to  pace  round 
in  the  mill  of  habit,  and  turn  the  wheel  of  wealth  ;  to  make 
reason  our  book-keeper,  and  turn  thought  into  an  implement 
of  trade,  —  this  is  not  life.  In  all  this,  but  a  poor  fraction 
of  the  consciousness  of  humanity  is  awakened  :  and  the 
sanctities  still  slumber  which  make  it  most  worth  while  to 
be.  Knowledge,  truth,  love,  beauty,  goodness,  faith,  alone 
give  vitality  to  the  mechanism  of  existence ;  the  laugh  of 
mirth  that  vibrates  through  the  heart,  the  tears  that  freshen 
the  dry  wastes  within,  the  music  that  brings  childhood  back, 
the  j^rayer  that  calls  the  future  near,  the  doubt  which  makes 
us  meditate,  the  death  which  startles  us  with  mystery,  the 
hardship  which  forces  us  to  struggle,  the  anxiety  that  ends 
in  trust,  —  are  the  true  nourishment  of  our  natural  being. 
But  these  things,  which  penetrate  to  the  very  core  and 
marrow  of  existence,  the  votaries  of  riches  are  apt  to  fly ; 
they  like  not  any  thing  that  touches  the  central  and  immor- 
tal consciousness ;  they  hurry  away  from  occasions  of  sym- 
pathy into  the  snug  retreat  of  self ;  escape  from  life  into 
the  pretended  cares  for  a  livelihood ;  and  die  at  length  busy 
as  ever  in  preparing  the  means  of  living. 

With  a  large  and,  I  fear,  a  predominant  class  among  us, 
it  is  scarcely  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  money  "  measureth 
all  things,"  and  is  more  an  object  of  ambition  than  any  of 
the  ends  to  which  it  affects  to  be  subservient.  It  is  the  one 
standard  of  value,  which  gives  estimation  to  the  vilest 
things  that  have  it,  and  leaves  in  contempt  the  best  that  are 
without  it.     It  is  set  up  as  the  measure  of  knowledge  ;  for 


MAMMON-WOESHIP.  71 

is  it  not  notorious  that  no  intellectual  attainments  receive  a 
just  appreciation,  but  those  which  may  be  converted  into 
gold  ;  that  this  is  the  rule  by  which,  almost  exclusively, 
parents  compute  the  worth  of  their  children's  education,  and 
determine  its  character  and  extent?  It  is  not  enough  that 
the  understanding  burns  with  generous  curiosity  for  the 
conquest  of  some  new  science,  or  the  fancy  for  some  new 
accomplishment ;  it  is  not  enough  that  a  study  is  needed  to 
brace  the  faculties  with  health,  or  illumine  the  imagination 
with  beauty,  or  agitate  the  heart  with  high  sympathies  ; 
"  but  what  is  the  use  of  it  ?  "  is  the  question  still  asked,  — 
as  if  it  were  not  use  enough,  instead  of  a  trader  to  make  a 
man.  Research  and  speculation  which  do  not  visibly  tend 
to  the  production  of  wealth  are  regarded  by  all,  except  the 
classes  engaged  in  their  pursuit,  as  the  dignified  frivolities 
of  whimsical  men ;  and  though  they  may  bear  the  torch  into 
the  darkness  of  antiquity,  or  open  some  unexplored  domain 
of  nature,  they  must  not  expect  more  than  a  cold  tolerance. 
Still  worse  ;  money  with  us  is  the  measure  of  morality  ;  for 
those  parts  and  attributes  of  virtue  are  in  primary  esteem 
which  are  conducive  to  worldly  aggrandizement ;  and  it  is 
easy  to  perceive  that  no  others  are  objects  of  earnest  and 
hearty  ambition.  Industry  and  regularity,  and  a  certain 
easy  amount  of  pecuniary  probity,  being  indispensable  in- 
struments of  prosperity,  the  great  moral  forces  of  trade,  are 
in  no  country  held  in  higher  worth  ;  but  the  amenities  which 
spread  a  grace  over  the  harsher  features  of  life,  the  clear 
veracity  that  knows  truth  and  profit  to  be  incommensur- 
able things,  and  the  generous  affections  whose  coin  is  in 
sympathy  as  well  as  gold,  are  the  objects  of  but  slight  care, 
and  slighter  culture.  The  current  ideas  of  human  nature 
and  character  are  graduated  by  the  same  rule,  and  err  on 
the  side,  not  of  generosity,  but  of  prudence.  The  experi- 
enced are  habitually  anxious  to  give  the  young  such  an  esti- 
mate of  mankind  as  may  prove,  not  the  most  true,  but  the 
most  profitable,  —  an  estimate  so  depressed  into  caution  as 


72  MAMMON-WORSHIP. 

to  be  altogether  below  justice.  To  escape  one  or  two  possi- 
ble rogues,  we  must  suppose  nobody  true ;  for  the  sake  of 
pecuniary  safety,  we  must  submit  to  the  moral  wretchedness 
of  universal  distrust,  and  blacken  the  great  human  heart  for 
our  private  ease :  as  if  it  were  not  better  to  run  the  risk  of 
ruin,  than  grow  familiar  with  so  vast  a  lie  ;  happier  to  be 
bankrupt  in  wealth  than  in  the  humanities.  But  alas  !  with 
us,  money  is  the  measure  of  all  utility  ;  it  is  this  which  con- 
stitutes the  real  though  disguised  distinction  between  the 
English  notions  of  theory  and  practice.  A  truth  may  be  in 
the  highest  degree  grand  and  important,  may  relieve  many 
a  cold  and  heavy  doubt,  and  open  many  a  fair  and  brilliant 
vision ;  but  unless  it  has  some  reference  to  money,  it  is  pro- 
nounced a  mere  theory.  A  social  improvement  may  be 
suggested,  which  promises  to  remove  some  absurd  anomaly, 
to  assert  some  comprehensive  principle,  or  annihilate  some 
sufferings  of  mere  feeling ;  but  because  it  has  no  direct 
relation  to  the  mechanism  of  property,  it  is  set  aside  as  not 
practical.  By  an  unnatural  abuse  of  terms,  "  practical  men  " 
are,  with  us,  not  those  who  study  the  bearing  of  things  on 
human  life  in  its  widest  comprehension,  but  those  who  value 
every  thing  by  its  effect  upon  the  purse. 

In  obedience  to  the  same  dominant  passion,  vast  numbers 
spend  their  term  of  mortal  service  in  restless  and  uneasy 
competition,  in  childish  struggles  for  a  higher  place  in  the 
roll  of  opulence  or  fashion,  in  jealousies  that  gnaw  to  the 
very  heart  of  luxury,  in  ambition  that  spoils  the  present 
splendor  by  the  shadow  of  some  new  want.  Happy  they  of 
simpler  feelings,  who  have  taken  counsel  of  a  pure  nature 
about  the  economy  of  good  ;  who  know  from  what  slight 
elements  the  hand  of  taste  can  weave  the  colors  into  the 
web  of  life,  and  from  what  familiar  memories  the  heart 
draws  the  song  of  cheerfulness  as  the  work  proceeds ;  who 
find  no  true  pleasure  marred  because  it  is  plebeian,  nor  any 
indulgence  needful  because  decreed  by  custom  ;  who  discern 
how  little  the  palace  can  add  to  the  sincere  joy  of  a  loving 


MAMMON-WORSHIP.  73 

and  a  Christian  home,  and  feel  that  nature  dwells  at  the 
centre  after  all ;  who.  have  the  firmness  to  retire  to  that 
inner  region,  and  embrace  the  toils  of  reason,  the  labors  of 
sympathy,  the  strife  of  conscience,  the  exhaustless  ambition 
of  duty,  as  Heaven's  own  way  to  combine  the  divinest  ac- 
tivity with  the  profoundest  repose. 

The  prevalent  occupations  of  the  community  in  which  we 
live  have  a  tendency  to  pervert  our  moral  sentiments  and 
social  affections,  no  less  than  our  estimates  of  happiness. 
In  a  society  so  engrossed  by  ideas  connected  with  property, 
so  eternally  dwelling  on  the  distinction  of  meum  and  tuum^ 
men  naturally  learn  to  think  and  speak  of  all  things  in  the 
language  belonging  to  this  relation ;  to  use  it  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  matters  less  familiar  to  them,  and  apply  its  imagery 
and  analogies  to  subjects  of  a  totally  different  character. 
Over  their  property  the  authority  of  law  gives  them  abso- 
lute right  and  control ;  no  man  may  touch  it  with  his  finger, 
or  call  them  to  account  for  its  disposal.  I  need  not  stop  to 
acknowledge,  what  is  too  plain  for  any  one  to  doubt,  that 
this  sanctity  of  property  from  invasion  is,  to  any  society, 
the  very  cement  of  its  civilization.  Yet  there  is  an  unques- 
tionable danger  of  giving  this  notion  of  irresponsible  posses- 
sion an  application  beyond  its  proper  range  ;  of  permitting 
the  sense  of  legal  right  to  creep  insensibly  into  the  domain 
of  moral  obligation,  and  spread  there  the  feeling  of  personal 
self-will,  and  set  up  the  caprices  of  inclination  for  the  delib- 
erations of  duty.  Men  are  exceedingly  apt  to  imagine,  that 
nothing  can  be  seriously  wrong,  which  they  have  a  right  to 
do ;  to  forget  that  the  license  which  is  allowed  by  law  may 
be  sternly  prohibited  by  morality.  How  little  concern  does 
any  wise  and  conscientious  principle  appear  to  have  with 
the  expenditure  of  private  revenue,  especially  where  that 
revenue  is  the  largest !  How  despotically  there  do  mere 
whim  and  chance  suggestion  appear  to  reign !  How  waste- 
fully  are  the  elements  of  human  enjoyment  squandered  in 
pernicious  luxuries,  or  dissipated  in  random  experiments  of 


74  MAMMON- WORSHIP. 

benevolence,  of  which  a  little  knowledge  beforehand  might 
have  taught  the  result  just  as  well  as  the  failure  afterwards ! 
And  if  ever  a  gentle  remonstrance  is  insinuated,  how  in- 
stantly does  the  vulgar  and  ignorant  feeling  leap  forth, 
"  And  may  I  not  do  what  I  like  with  my  own  ?"  No,  you 
may  not,  unless  your  liking  and  your  duty  are  in  happy 
accordance.  Morally  you  are  as  much  bound  to  distribute 
your  own  wealth  wisely,  as  to  abstain  from  touching  another 
man's ;  bound  by  the  very  same  fundamental  reasons,  which 
forbid  the  privation  of  human  enjoyment  no  less  than  the 
creation  of  human  misery.  As  large  a  portion  of  well-being 
may  be  sacrificed  by  an  act  of  wilful  extravagance  as  by  the 
commission  of  a  dishonesty :  and  were  it  of  a  nature  to  be 
definable  by  law,  would  merit  as  severe  a  punishment. 
Shall  any  thing  then  deter  us  from  saying  that  such  self- 
indulgence  is  a  thief? 

But  the  feelings  which  are  entertained  towards  property, 
—  the  feelings  of  absolute  and  irresponsible  control,  —  are 
very  apt  to  extend  to  whatever  it  can  purchase  and  procure  ; 
and  unhappily,  to  the  services  of  those  human  beings  who 
yield  us  their  labor  for  hire.  There  is  nothing  over  which 
a  man  exercises  such  uncontrolled  power  as  his  purse  ;  and 
(where  no  principle  of  justice  and  benevolence  intervenes) 
but  one  remove  from  this  despotism  are  placed  his  depend- 
ants. In  them  the  right  of  every  human  being  to  be  appre- 
ciated according  to  his  moral  worth  is  forgotten  ;  and  the 
rule  by  which  they  are  judged  is,  their  mechanical  use  to 
the  master,  not  their  excellence  in  themselves.  That  they 
are  responsible  agents  (except  to  their  employers),  that  they 
have  an  intelligence  receptive  of  truth,  hearts  that  may 
shelter  gentle  sympathies,  and  a  work  of  duty  to  carry  on 
beneath  the  eye  of  God,  that  their  bodies  are  of  the  same 
clay  and  their  life  constructed  of  the  same  vicissitudes  as 
ours,  —  are  thoughts  that  too  seldom  occur  to  lead  us  to 
consult  their  feelings,  to  allow  for  their  temptations,  to 
respect  their  conscience  and  improvement,  as  would  become 


MAMMON-WORSHIP.  75 

a  fraternal  and  a  Christian  heart.  How  hardly  are  they 
judged !  By  how  much  more  rigid  a  rule  than  that  which 
we  apply  to  our  friends  or  to  ourselves !  What  order,  what 
punctuality,  what  untiring  industry,  what  equanimity  of 
temper,  what  abstinent  integrity,  is  imperiously  and  merci- 
lessly demanded  by  many  a  master,  lax,  and  lazy,  and  pas- 
sionate himself !  Oh  with  what  biting  indignation  have  I 
seen  those  most  wretched  of  educated  beings,  the  governess 
in  a  family  and  the  usher  in  a  school,  worked  to  the  bone 
without  the  help  of  a  sympathy,  moving  in  perpetual  rota- 
tion, with  no  feeling  but  of  the  daily  whirl,  and  of  incessant 
friction  upon  all  that  is  most  tender  in  their  nature  ;  expected 
to  have  all  perfections,  intellectual  and  moral,  and  to  dis- 
pense with  the  respect  which  is  their  natural  due  ;  copiously 
blamed  for  what  is  wrong,  but  scantily  praised  for  what  is 
right ;  paid,  but  never  cheered  ;  and  when  worn  threadbare 
at  last,  put  away  as  one  of  the  cast-off  shreds  of  society, 
that  only  deforms  the  house  filled  with  purple  and  fine  linen. 
This  is  the  consequence  of  that  state  of  things  in  which  (to 
use  the  words  of  a  Church  Dignitary,  who  could  find  it 
in  his  heart  to  write  them  without  a  syllable  of  regret  or 
rebuke)  "  poverty  is  infamous ; "  and  in  which  knowledge 
and  virtue  weigh  nothing  against  gold.  Let  the  children  of 
labor  remember,  that  they  are  of  the  class  which  he  of  Naz- 
areth dignified  ;  that,  peradventure,  in  his  youthful  days  of 
mechanic  toil,  he  too  was  looked  on  by  the  coarse  eye  of 
sheer  power  ;  and  yet  nurtured,  amid  indignities  and  neg- 
lect, the  spirit  that  made  him  divinely  wise. 

The  despotic  temper  which  is  apt  to  be  engendered  by 
wealth  in  one  direction,  is  naturally  connected  with  servility 
in  the  opposite.  For  the  very  same  reason  that  we  regard 
those  who  are  beneath  us  almost  as  if  they  were  our  prop- 
erty, we  must  regard  ourselves  almost  as  if  we  were  the 
property  of  those  above  us.  There  is  little,  I  fear,  that  is 
intellectual  or  moral  in  that  sort  of  independence  which  is 
the  proverbial  characteristic  of  our  countrymen  ;  it  consists 


76  MAMMON-WORSHIP. 

either  in  mere  churlishness  of  manner,  or  in  overbearing 
tyranny  to  those  of  equal  or  lower  grade.  It  would  be 
inconsistent  not  to  yield  that  respect  to  the  purse  in  others, 
which  men  are  fond  of  claiming  for  it  in  themselves ;  and 
accordingly  it  is  to  be  feared  that  in  few  civilized  countries 
is  there  so  much  sycophancy  as  in  this  ;  so  many  creatures 
ready  to  crawl  round  a  heap  of  gold ;  so  many  insignificant 
shoals  gleaming  around  every  great  ship  that  rides  over  the 
surface  of  society.  It  is  a  grievous  evil  arising  hence,  that 
the  judgments  and  moral  feelings  of  society  lose  their  clear- 
sightedness and  power  ;  that  the  same  rules  are  not  applied 
to  the  estimate  of  rich  and  poor ;  that  there  is  a  rank  which 
almost  enjoys  immunity  from  the  verdict  of  a  just  public 
sentiment,  where  the  most  ordinary  qualities  receive  a  mis- 
chievous adulation,  and  even  grave  sins  are  judged  lightly 
or  not  at  all.  But  it  is  a  more  grievous  ill  that  the  witchery 
thus  strikes  with  a  foul  blight  the  true  manhood  of  the  chil- 
dren of  God  ;  —  the  manhood,  not  of  limbs  or  life,  but  of  a 
spirit  free  and  pure ;  —  of  an  understanding  open  to  all 
truth,  and  venerating  it  too  deeply  to  love  it  except  for 
itself,  or  barter  it  for  honor  or  for  gold ;  of  a  heart  en- 
thralled by  no  conventionalisms,  bound  by  no  frost  of  cus- 
tom, but  the  perennial  fountain  of  all  pure  humanities ;  of 
a  will  at  the  mercv  of  no  tyrant  without  and  no  passion 
within ;  of  a  conscience  erect  under  all  the  pressure  of  cir- 
cumstances, and  ruled  by  no  power  inferior  to  the  everlast- 
ing law  of  duty  ;  of  affections  gentle  enough  for  the  humblest 
sorrows  of  earth,  lofty  enough  for  the  aspirings  of  the  skies. 
In  such  manhood,  full  of  devout  strength  and  open  love,  let 
every  one  that  owns  a  soul  see  that  he  stands  fast ;  in  its 
spirit,  at  once  humane  and  heavenly,  do  the  work,  accept 
the  good,  and  bear  the  burdens  of  his  life.  Its  healthful 
power  will  reveal  the  sickness  of  our  selfishness,  and  recall 
us  from  the  poisonous  level  of  our  luxuries  and  vanities  to 
the  reviving  breath  and  the  mountain  heights  of  God. 
There  could  be  no  deliverer  more  true  than  he  who  should 


MAMMON-WORSHIP.  77 

thus  emancipate  himself  and  us.  Oh  blessed  are  they  who, 
for  the  peace  and  ornament  of  life,  dare  to  rely,  not  on  the 
glories  which  Solomon  affected,  but  on  those  which  Jesus 
loved;  —  glories  which  even  God  may  behold  with  compla- 
cency, —  nay,  in  which  he  shines  himself ;  glories  of  nature, 
richer  than  of  man's  device  ;  genuine  graces,  resembling  the 
inimitable  beauties  of  the  lilies  of  the  field,  painted  with  the 
hues  of  heaven,  while  bending  over  the  soil  of  earth. 


IX. 

THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  WITHIN  US. 

PAKT  I. 


Matthew  iv.  17. 

fbom  that  time  jesus  began  to  pkeach,  and  to  sat,  repent;  for 

the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand. 

By  the  kingdom  of  Heaven  was  meant  reformation  upon 
earth.  Whatever  difficulties  there  may  be  in  filling  up  the 
precise  picture  which  the  phrase  would  bring  before  the 
mind  of  a  Jewish  audience,  it  was  unquestionably  the  He- 
brew formula  for  the  expected  golden  age,  and  was  the 
popular  symbol  to  denote  perfected  society ;  the  final  ascend- 
ancy of  truth,  justice,  and  peace;  the  expulsion  of  misery 
and  wrong ;  the  eternal  reign  of  all  that  is  divine  over  the 
world.  This  theocratic  revolution  was  expected  speedily, 
when  the  words  of  the  text  were  uttered.  On  the  sup- 
posed eve  of  such  a  change,  which,  would  itself  bring  rem- 
edies for  every  imaginable  ill,  physical  and  moral,  all  earnest 
efforts  at  social  amelioration  might  appear  to  be  superseded  ; 
the  nearer  the  crisis  of  restoration,  the  shorter  would  be  the 
triumphs  of  oppression,  and  the  feebler  the  mischiefs  of 
sin :  nay,  if  corruption  ripens  for  judgment,  a  more  vehe- 
ment outblaze  of  human  crime  might  even  be  welcomed  by 
some,  as  likely  to  hasten  the  interposition  which  was  to 
quench  and  to  regenerate.  The  appropriate  lesson  of  the 
hour  might  be  thought  to  be  one  of  passive  watchfulness ; 
to  lie  in  wait  for  the  hoped-for  redemption ;  to  relax  even 
the  accustomed  energies  of  life  and  duty,  as  on  a  world 


THE  KINGDOM   OF   GOD   WITHIN   US.  79 

grown  old  ;  and,  in  the  words  of  one  writing  under  the  in- 
fluence of  this  very  expectation,  to  let  "  him  that  is  unjust, 
be  unjust  still ;  him  that  is  filthy,  be  filthy  still;  him  that  is 
righteous,  be  righteous  still ;  him  that  is  holy,  be  holy  still ; 
for  the  time  is  at  hand." 

Instead  of  this,  however,  the  great  prophet  of  the  hour 
draws  the  opposite  inference ;  and  utters  the  exhortation 
short  and  sharp,  "  Repent ! "  A  life  of  worldly  acquies- 
cence, of  selfish  habit,  of  unloving  and  barren  ease,  will 
not  do,  he  conceives,  for  the  kingdom  of  Heaven  ;  which,  be 
it  what  it  may,  is  no  system  of  mechanism  for  forcing  men 
to  be  wise  and  good  without  any  trouble,  but  a  social  state 
accruing  from  wisdom  and  excellence  previously  formed; 
not  a  scene  from  which  souls  acquire  sanctity,  but  one  to 
which  they  give  it.  Personal  repentance,  the  transference 
of  the  life  from  conventionalism  to  conviction,  the  kindling 
of  pure  and  productive  affections,  must  precede  and  usher 
in  the  reign  of  God  upon  the  earth  ;  men  must  truly  ven- 
erate the  Deity  within  them,  and  he  will  not  be  slow  to 
descend  with  his  peace  on  society  around  them.  The  holy 
and  divine  must  first  be  recognized  and  enshrined  in  the  in- 
dividual and  private  heart;  and  then  will  follow  its  wider 
conquests  over  humanity.  There  is  the  home  and  citadel 
of  its  strength,  from  which  it  sallies  forth  to  win  its  public 
triumphs,  and  establish  its  general  rule ;  there  the  centre 
whence  its  influence  radiates,  till  it  embraces  and  penetrates 
even  the  outlying  margin  of  barbarism  and  sin. 

Christ,  then,  whose  voice  is  Christianity,  addresses  him- 
self first  to  the  individual  conscience ;  indulges  in  no  dreams 
of  a  renovated  world  without,  till  he  has  flung  his  appeal  to 
the  man  within ;  looks  there  for  the  creative  and  vital  forces, 
which  are  to  make  all  things  new.  He  speaks  to  his  hear- 
ers, not  as  to  passive  creatures  who  might  look  about  them 
for  some  position  in  which  it  ihight  befall  them  to  be  good, 
but  as  to  beings  conscious  of  internal  power  to  strive  and 
win  the  excellence  they  love  ;  to  grapple  athletically  with 


80  THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD   WITHIN   US. 

the  oppositions  of  circumstance  ;  and  run  the  appointed  race, 
though  with  panting  breast  and  bleeding  feet.  Herein,  I 
conceive,  did  Christ  preach  a  gospel  wholly  at  variance  with 
the  prevailing  temper  and  philosophy  of  our  times.  It  is 
their  tendency  not  to  excite  men  to  become  what  they  ought 
to  be,  but  to  manage  them  as  they  are.  The  age  has  been 
prolific  (like  many  of  its  predecessors)  in  inventions  and 
proposed  social  arrangements,  by  which  we  may  sit  still  and 
be  made  into  the  right  kind  of  men ;  which  will  render  duty 
the  smoothest  thing  on  earth,  by  warning  all  interfering  mo- 
tives off  the  spot,  and  turn  the  Christian  race  into  a  stroll 
upon  a  mossy  lawn.  The  trust  and  boast  of  our  period  is 
not  in  its  individual  energy  and  virtue,  not  in  its  great  and 
good  minds,  but  in  its  external  civilization,  in  schemes  of 
social  and  political  improvement,  in  things  to  be  done /or  us, 
rather  than  hy  us ;  in  what  we  are  to  get^  more  than  in  what 
we  are  to  he.  We  have  had  systems  of  education,  which 
were  to  mould  the  minds  of  our  children  into  a  perfection 
that  would  make  experience  blush ;  systems  of  self-culture, 
to  nurse  our  faculties  into  full  maturity ;  systems  of  social- 
ism, for  mending  the  whole  world,  and  presenting  every  one 
with  a  virtuous  mind,  without  the  least  trouble  on  his  part. 
Even  those  who  escape  this  enthusiasm  of  system,  are  apt 
to  place  an  extravagant  trust  in  sets  of  outward  circum- 
stances ;  and,  dazzled  by  the  splendid  forms  which  modern 
civilization  assumes,  to  conceive  of  them  as  powers  in  them- 
selves, independently  of  the  minds  that  fill  and  use  them. 
Commerce,  mechanical  art,  and  more  reasonably,  but  still 
with  some  error,  the  school  and  the  printing-press,  are  each 
in  turn  cited  as  in  themselves  securing  the  indefinite  prog- 
ress of  nations  and  mankind.  It  would  be  absurd  to  doubt 
that  these  causes  operate  with  constant  and  beneficent 
power  on  the  mind  of  a  people ;  but  on  this  very  account 
an  exclusive  and  irrational  reliance  may  be  placed  upon 
them.  It  is  obvious  that  two  methods  exist,  of  aiming  at 
human  improvement,  —  by  adjusting  circumstances  without 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD   WITHIN   US.  81 

and  by  addressing  the  affections  within  ;  by  creating  facili- 
ties of  position,  or  by  developing  force  of  character;  by 
mechanism  or  by  mind.  The  one  is  institutional  and  syste- 
matic, operating  on  a  large  scale ;  reaching  individuals  cir- 
cuitously  and  at  last ;  the  other  is  personal  and  moral,  the 
influence  of  soul  on  soul,  life  creating  life,  beginning  in  the 
regeneration  of  the  individual  and  spreading  thence  over 
communities  ;  the  one,  in  short,  reforming  from  the  circum- 
ference to  the  centre,  the  other  from  the  centre  to  the  cir- 
cumference. And  in  comparing  these  it  is  not  difficult  to 
show  the  superior  triumphs  of  the  latter,  which  was  the 
method  of  Christ  and  Christianity.  Indeed  the  great  pe- 
culiarity of  the  Christian  view  of  life  is  to  be  found  in  its 
preference  of  the  inward  element  over  the  outward  ;  its  re- 
liance upon  the  least  showy  and  most  deep  buried  portions 
of  society  for  the  evangelizing  of  the  world  ;  and  still  more 
upon  the  profoundest  and  most  faintly  whispered  sentiments 
of  the  soul  for  the  regeneration  of  the  individual.  It  for- 
bids us  to  say,  "  Lo,  here  !  "  or  "  Lo,  there  !  "  and  assures  us 
that  "  the  kingdom  of  God  is  within  "  us. 

In  attributing  the  sanctification  and  moral  growth  of  per- 
sonal character  to  an  agency  from  within^  Christianity  is 
surely  confirmed  by  experience.  Rarely  do  these  blessed 
changes  originate  in  any  peculiarities  of  the  individual's  lot, 
visibly  favorable  ;  —  else  from  a  knowledge  of  his  circum- 
stances, we  should  be  able  to  predict  the  history  of  his 
mind.  Most  often  they  arise,  without  any  marked  revolu- 
tion in  his  condition,  from  secret  and  untraceable  workings 
of  the  soul,  from  native  forces  of  the  inner  man,  merely 
taking  from  external  circumstances  an  excuse  for  breaking 
into  energy,  —  an  excuse  which  a  thousand  different  situa- 
tions would  have  supplied  as  well.  Feeble  minds,  in  apol- 
ogy for  their  puny  growth  or  premature  decay  in  excellence, 
complain  of  the  climate  in  which  God  has  planted  them ; 
but  where  there  is  any  vigor  of  life,  the  good  seed  will  not 
wait  to  burst,  till  it  be  removed  to  some  sunny  slope  or  lux- 

6 


82  THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD   WITHIN   US. 

uriaiit  garden  of  the  Lord :  give  it  but  a  lodgment  on  the 
rock,  and  feed  it  with  the  melting  snow,  and  it  will  start  a 
forest  on  the  hills,  climbing  with  giant  feet,  fast  as  the 
seasons  can  make  steps.  Whatever  truth  there  may  be  in 
the  doctrine  of  circumstances,  when  applied  on  a  large  scale 
to  tribes  of  men,  — however  certain  it  may  be  that  national 
character  is  changed  by  the  insensible  influences  of  national 
condition, — the  application  of  the  notion  by  individuals  to 
their  own  case  is  almost  always  fallacious  ;  and  the  very 
fact  of  their  throwing  upon  their  fate  the  blame  of  their 
own  faithlessness  and  sin,  is  a  sure  symptom  that  they  have 
not  the  living  conscience  which  would  turn  a  better  lot  into 
a  better  life.  The  souls  that  would  really  be  richer  in  duty 
in  some  new  position,  are  precisely  those  who  borrow  no 
excuses  from  the  old  one ;  who  even  esteem  it  full  of  privi- 
leges, plenteous  in  occasions  of  good,  frequent  in  divine 
appeals,  which  they  chide  their  graceless  and  unloving  tem- 
per for  not  heeding  more.  Wretched  and  barren  is  the 
discontent  that  quarrels  with  its  tools  instead  of  with  its 
skill;  and,  by  criticising  Providence,  manages  to  keep  up 
complacency  with  self.  How  gentle  should  we  be,  if  we 
were  not  provoked  ;  how  pious,  if  we  were  not  busy  ;  the 
sick  would  be  patient,  only  he  is  not  in  health ;  the  obscure 
would  do  great  things,  only  he  is  not  conspicuous !  Nay, 
the  infatuation  besets  us  more  closely  still,  and  tempts  us 
to  expect  wonders  from  some  altered  posture  of  our  affairs 
totally  inadequate  to  their  production.  What  we  neglect  in 
summer  is  to  be  done  in  winter  ;  what  present  interrup- 
tions persuade  us  to  forego  is  to  be  gloriously  achieved  at 
some  coming  period  of  golden  leisure,  when  confusion  is  to 
cease,  and  life  to  be  set  into  an  order  unattainable  yet.  As 
if  time  and  change,  which  should  be  our  servants,  and  made 
to  do  the  bidding  of  our  conscience,  were  to  be  waited  on 
by  our  servile  will ;  as  if  the  pusillanimous  submission,  once 
made,  could  be  at  once  recalled.  No ;  as  the  captive  of 
old  was  carried  off  from  the  field  of  battle  to  the  field  of 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD    WITHIN   US.  83 

slavery,  the  vanquished  soul  becomes  temptation's  serf, 
and,  after  tears  and  repinings,  learns  to  be  cheerful  at  the 
toil  of  sin.  Once  let  a  man  insult  the  majesty  of  duty, 
by  waiting  till  its  commands  shall  become  easy,  and  he  must 
be  disowned  as  an  outlaw  from  her  realm.  If  he  calculates 
on  this  or  that  happy  influence  which  is  to  shape  him  into 
something  nobler;  if  he  once  regards  his  moral  nature, 
not  as  an  authoritative  power  invested  within  its  sphere 
with  a  divine  omnipotence  that  speaks  and  it  is  done,  but 
as  passive  material  to  be  worked  by  the  ingenuity  of  cir- 
cumstances into  somewhat  that  is  good,  —  it  is  all  over 
with  him ;  the  ascendancy  of  conscience  is  gone ;  collapse 
and  ruin  have  begun.  The  mind  has  fallen  into  content- 
ment with  the  mere  conception,  —  the  feeble  and  far-off 
imagination  of  excellence ;  confounds  the  look  of  duty, 
which  indeed  is  a  fair  vision,  with  the  strife  and  effort,  the 
weary  tension  of  resolve,  the  doubt,  the  prayers,  the  tears, 
which  may  bring  our  Christian  manhood  to  exhaustion. 
Pleasant  is  it  to  entertain  the  picture  of  ourselves  in  some 
future  scene,  planning  wisely,  feeling  nobly,  and  executing 
with  holy  triumph  of  the  will ;  but  'tis  a  different  thing,  — 
not  in  the  green  avenues  of  the  future,  but  in  the  hot  dust  of 
the  present  moment,  —  not  in  the  dramatic  positions  of  the 
fancy,  but  in  the  plain  prosaic  now,  —  to  do  the  duty  that 
waits  and  wants  us,  and  put  forth  an  instant  and  reveren- 
tial hand  to  the  noon-day  or  the  evening  task.  It  is  a  vain 
attempt,  —  that  of  the  Epicurean  moralist:  to  ''''  endure  hard- 
ness "  is  the  needful  condition  of  every  service,  and  above 
all,  for  the  good  "soldier  of  Christ ;"  and  no  man  can  try 
his  utmost,  with  comfort  to  himself.  Without  great  effort 
was  nothing  worthy  ever  achieved ;  and  he  who  is  never 
conscious  of  any  strong  lift  within  the  mind,  may  know 
that  he  is  a  cumberer  of  the  ground. 

This  weak  reliance  then  on  outward  occasions  and  influ- 
ences for  moral  improvement  is  always  ineffectual.  And 
it  is  the  constant  experience  of  those  who  indulge  in  it,  tliat 


84  THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD    WITHIN   US. 

to  postpone  the  season  is  to  perj)etuate  the  sin.  Instead 
of  being  lifted  easily  by  the  mechanism  of  new  and  more 
powerful  motives  into  a  higher  life,  the  most  overwhelming 
vicissitudes  sweep  over  them,  and  after  beating  upon  their 
defenceless  affections,  leave  them  where  they  were ;  not  in- 
vigorated into  effort,  but  simply  wasted  by  passive  anguish  : 
just  as  danger,  which  may  but  reveal  to  the  strong  his 
strength,  will  sink  the  paralytic  into  death.  But  where,  on 
the  contrary,  the  soul  rests,  with  implicit  dependence,  not 
on  outward  opportunities,  but  on  inward  convictions,  on 
some  venerated  idea  of  right,  there  is  the  true  germ  of 
spiritual  life,  the  element  of  a  mighty  power.  This  repose 
upon  a  supreme  ideal  as  the  only  real  is  the  true  Christian 
faith ;  and  he  that  has  it,  though  it  be  little  as  a  grain  of 
mustard-seed,  is  able  to  cast  the  mountain  into  the  sea. 
For,  its  force  depends  not  on  the  greatness  or  rarity  of  the 
thoughts  which  enter  into  it ;  the  simplest  faith,  be  it  only 
deep  and  trustful,  the  very  smallest  idea  of  a  mission  in  life 
assigned  by  God,  be  it  only  lovingly  and  clearly  seen,  "  lifteth 
the  poor  out  of  the  dust,"  and  "  to  them  that  have  no  might 
increaseth  strength."  As  of  old  it  banished  disease,  and 
couched  the  blind,  and  soothed  the  maniac,  by  miracles  of 
power,  so  does  it  still  heal  and  bless  by  its  miracles  of  love. 
Who  has  not  seen  the  frequent  transformation  it  elFects 
in  the  wayward,  frivolous,  self-indulgent  child,  when  some 
living  point  has  been  touched  within  the  heart ;  how  it  seems 
to  create  wisdom,  experience,  energy,  and  serenity  at  a 
stroke,  and  teaches  her  best  to  administer  the  daily  and 
nightly  medicine  of  an  unspeakable  affection  to  the  sufferings 
of  a  sick  brother,  or  the  infirmities  of  an  aged  parent.  It 
puts  a  divine  fire  into  the  dullest  soul,  and  draws  in  Saul 
also  among  the  prophets;  it  turns  the  peasant  into  the 
apostle,  and  the  apostle's  meanest  follower  into  the  martyr. 
I  have  spoken  of  the  sudden  change  of  mind  effected  by 
a  newly-opened  faith.  In  the  primitive  Christian  doctrine 
such  change  plainly  seems  to  have  been  recognized  as  pos- 


THE   KINGDOM  OF   GOD   WITHIN   US.  85 

Bible.  And  in  spite  of  all  that  philosophers  have  written, 
with  some  truth  but  not  the  whole  truth,  respecting  the 
power  of  habit,  and  the  slow  and  severe  pace  of  moral  im- 
provement and  recovery,  and  the  impossibility  of  abrupt 
conversion,  I  believe  there  is  a  profound  reality  in  the 
opposite  and  popular  belief ;  —  as  indeed  there  must  be  in 
all  popular  beliefs  respecting  matters  of  mental  experience. 
It  is  quite  true  that  instantaneous  regeneration  of  the  mind 
is  not  a  phenomenon  of  the  commoner  sort,  especially  in  the 
present  day :  but  it  is  also  true,  that  of  all  the  remarkable 
moral  recoveries  that  occur  (alas  !  too  few  at  best),  almost 
the  whole  are  of  this  kind.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  upward 
efforts  of  the  will,  when  it  exchanges  the  madness  of  passion 
for  the  perceptions  of  reason,  are  toilsome,  and,  if  successful, 
tardy ;  and  if  all  transformations  of  conscience  were  of  the 
deliberate  and  reasonable  sort,  philosophers  could  not  say 
too  much  about  their  infrequency  and  slowness.  But  the 
process  springs  from  a  higher  and  more  powerful  source; 
the  persuasion  is  conducted  by  some  new  and  intense  affec- 
tion, some  fresh  and  vivid  reverence,  followed,  not  led,  by 
the  conscience  and  reason.  The  weeds  are  not  painfully 
plucked  up  by  the  cautious  hand  of  tillage  reckoning  on  its 
fruits,  but  burnt  out  by  the  blaze  of  a  divine  shame  and  love. 
It  is  quite  true  that  such  a  change  cannot  be  expected,  — 
that  to  calculate  on  it  is  inexpressibly  perilous;  for  the 
deeper  movements  of  the  soul  shrink  back  from  our  compu- 
tations, refuse  to  be  made  the  tools  of  our  prudence,  and 
insist  on  coming  unobserved  or  coming  never  ;  and  he  that 
reckons  on  them  sends  them  into  banishment,  and  only 
shows  that  they  are  and  must  be  strangers  to  his  barren 
heart.  It  is  quite  true  that  self-cure  is  of  all  things  the  most 
arduous ;  but  that  which  is  impossible  to  the  man  within  us^ 
may  be  altogether  possible  to  the  God.  In  truth,  the  denial 
of  such  changes,  under  the  affectation  of  great  knowledge 
of  man,  shows  an  incredible  ignorance  of  men.  Why,  the 
history  of  every  great  religious  revolution,  such  as  the  spread 


86  THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD   WITHIN    US. 

of  Methodism,  is  made  up  of  nothing  else ;  the  instances 
occurring  in  such  number  and  variety,  as  to  transform  the 
character  of  whole  districts  and  vast  populations,  and  to  put 
all  scepticism  at  utter  defiance.  And  if  some  more  philo- 
sophic authority  is  needed  for  the  fact,  we  may  be  content 
with  the  sanction  of  Lord  Bacon,  who  observed  that  a  man 
reforms  his  habits  either  all  together  or  not  at  all.  Deterio- 
ration of  mind  is  indeed  always  gradual ;  recovery  usually 
sudden ;  for  God,  by  a  mystery  of  mercy,  has  established 
this  distinction  in  our  secret  nature,  —  that  while  we  cannot, 
by  one  dark  plunge,  sympathize  with  guilt  far  beneath  us, 
but  gaze  at  it  with  recoil  till  intermediate  shades  have  ren- 
dered the  degradation  tolerable,  —  we  are  yet  capable  of 
sympathizing  with  moral  excellence  and  beauty  infinitely 
above  us ;  so  that  while  the  debased  may  shudder  and  sicken 
at  even  the  true  picture  of  themselves,  they  can  feel  the 
silent  majesty  of  self-denying  and  disinterested  duty.  With 
a  demon  can  no  man  feel  complacency,  though  the  demon 
be  himself;  but  God  can  all  spirits  reverence,  though  his 
holiness  be  an  infinite  deep.  And  thus  the  soul,  privately 
uneasy  at  its  insincere  state,  is  prepared,  when  vividly  pre- 
sented with  some  sublime  object  veiled  before,  to  be  pierced 
as  by  a  flash  from  heaven  with  an  instant  veneration,  some- 
times intense  enough  to  fuse  the  fetters  of  habit  and  drop 
them  to  the  earth  whence  they  were  forged.  The  mind  is 
ready,  like  a  liquid  on  the  eve  of  crystallization,  to  yield 
up  its  state  on  the  touch  of  the  first  sharp  point,  and  dart, 
over  its  surface  and  in  its  depths,  into  brilliant  and  beautiful 
forms,  and  from  being  turbid  and  weak  as  water,  to  become 
clear  as  crystal,  and  solid  as  the  rock. 

Meanwhile,  though  acknowledging,  for  the  sake  of  truth 
and  the  understanding  of  God's  grace,  the  possibility  and 
reality  of  such  changes,  we  must  remember  that,  like  all 
vicissitudes  of  the  affections,  they  neither  come  at  the  direct 
command  of  our  will,  nor  descend  on  those  who  watch  for 
external  influences  to  produce  them.     There  are  those  who 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD   WITHIN   US.  87 

go  about  in  passive  waiting  for  a  call  from  heaven ;  who 
try  this,  and  try  that,  and  say,  "  Lo  here  !  "  and  "  Lo  there  !  " 
And  they  find  that  "the  kingdom  of  God  cometh  not  of 
observation."  Wanting  to  be  holy,  for  the  sake  of  being 
happy,  they  shall  assuredly  be  neither ;  unless  first  the  crust 
of  their  selfish  nature  is  broken  by  affliction,  and  bending 
the  head  upon  the  shrine  of  sorrow,  they  cry  with  a  con- 
trition that  forgets  to  be  happy,  —  a  cry  that,  it  may  be, 
the  Divine  Spirit  will  not  despise.  The  kingdom  of  God  is 
within  us.  In  the  latency  of  every  soul  there  lurks,  among 
the  things  it  loves  and  venerates,  some  earnest  and  salient 
point,  whence  a  divine  life  may  be  begun  and  radiate  ;  some 
incipient  idea  of  duty,  it  may  be,  some  light  mist  of  disin- 
terested love,  appearing  vague  and  nebulous  and  infinitely 
distant  within  the  mighty  void,  —  a  broken  fringe  of  holy 
light,  seen  only  in  the  spirit's  deepest  darkness :  and  therein 
may  be  the  stirrings  of  a  mystic  energy,  and  the  haze  may 
be  gathered  together,  and  glow  within  the  mind  into  a  star, 
—  a  sun,  —  a  piercing  eye  of  God.  But  wherever  the  Deity 
dwelleth  within  us,  he  will  be  unfelt  and  a  stranger  to  us 
till  we  abandon  ourselves  to  the  duties  and  aspirations  which 
we  feel  to  be  his  voice ;  till  we  renounce  ourselves,  and  un- 
hesitatingly precipitate  our  life  on  the  persuasion  of  our  dis- 
interested affections.  While  his  "  Spirit  bloweth  where  it 
listeth,"  yet  certain  it  is  that  they  only  who  do  his  will  shall 
ever  feel  his  power. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  WITHIN  US. 
PART  II. 


Matthew  iv.  17. 

fkom  that  time  jesus  began  to  preach,  and  to  sat,  bepent  ;  for 
thb  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand. 

That  the  reformation  and  improvement  of  individual  char- 
acter proceeds  from  within,  not  from  without ;  that  it  usually 
dates,  not  from  any  change  in  the  condition  and  circum- 
stances of  life,  but  from  the  birth  of  some  indigenous  idea  or 
affection  in  the  mind,  —  is  the  doctrine  which  I  endeavored 
to  establish  in  the  preceding  discourse.  However  natural 
may  be  our  reliance  on  external  influences  and  marked 
transitions  in  our  lot,  as  facilities  for  a  change  of  mind,  that 
reliance  was  shown  to  be  delusive,  and  even  to  originate  in 
a  state  of  feeling,  which  itself  forbids  the  change.  A  new 
and  regenerative  affection,  wherever  it  finds  root,  springs 
up  (like  a  kingdom  of  God  within  us),  "not  with  observa- 
tion," but  silently  and  unconsciously  ;  from  suggestions  seem- 
ingly slight  or  even  untraceable ;  with  power  often  sudden 
and  triumphant ;  in  a  seat  within  the  soul  profound  and 
central ;  whence  a  transforming  force  radiates  over  the 
whole  character  to  its  very  form  and  visible  expression. 

From  the  case  of  an  individual  man,  we  will  now  pass 
to  that  of  multitudes.  In  societies,  the  order  of  reformation 
will  be  found  to  be  the  same  ;  —  from  the  centre  to  the  cir- 
cumference ;  from  a  solitary  point  deep  buried  and  un- 
noticed, first  to  the  circumjacent  region,  and  then  over  the 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD   WITHIN   US.  89 

whole  service ;  from  the  native  force  and  inspired  insight 
of  some  individual  mind,  that  kindles,  first  itself,  and  then, 
by  its  irresistible  intensity,  a  wider  and  wider  sphere  of 
souls  ;  spirit  being  born  of  spirit,  life  of  life,  thought  of 
thought.  A  higher  civilization,  by  which  I  understand 
neither  superior  clothes,  nor  better  houses,  nor  richer  wines, 
nor  even  more  destructive  gunpowder,  but  a  nobler  system 
of  ideas  and  aspirations  possessing  a  community,  must  com- 
mence, where  alone  ideas  and  aspirations  can  have  a  begin- 
ning, in  somebody's  mind.  Hence,  of  all  the  more  remarkable 
social  revolutions,  the  seminal  principle,  the  primitive  type, 
may  be  traced  to  some  one  man,  whose  spiritual  greatness 
had  force  enough  to  convert  generations  and  constitute  an 
era  in  the  world's  life ;  who  preached  with  power  some 
mighty  repentance  or  transition  of  sentiment  within  the 
hearts  of  men,  and  thus  rendered  more  near  at  hand  that 
"kingdom  of  Heaven,"  for  which  all  men  sigh  and  good 
men  toil.  Private  "  repentance,"  individual  moral  energy, 
deep  personal  faith  in  some  great  conception  of  duty  or 
religion,  are  the  pre-requi^ites  and  causes  of  all  social 
amelioration. 

It  might  appear  a  waste  of  breath  to  make  assertion  of 
so  plain  a  truth  as  this,  were  it  not  for  the  disposition  of 
men  to  invert  this  order,  to  plan  new  systems  of  society  in 
order  to  perfect  the  individual,  instead  of  seeking  in  the 
individual  conscience  the  germ  of  a  nobler  form  of  society. 
Every  vice  and  grievance,  every  evil,  physical  and  moral, 
which  may  afflict  any  class  of  a  community,  is  apt  to  be 
charged  exclusively  upon  faulty  institutional  arrangements  ; 
upon  laws  or  the  want  of  laws ;  on  forms  of  government ; 
on  economical  necessity;  on  some  external  causes  which 
lift  off  the  weight  of  responsibility  from  the  individual  will, 
and  make  men  passive  and  querulous  under  wrong,  instead 
of  active  and  penitent.  Their  aspirations  are  turned  out- 
wards, rather  than  inwards ;  become  complaints  instead  of 
efforts;  and  spoil  their  tempers  instead  of  ennobling  their 


90  THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD   WITHIN   US. 

energies.  They  must  have  the  world  mended,  before  they 
can  be  expected  to  be  better  than  they  are  :  they  reverse 
the  solemn  exhortation  of  my  text ;  and  propose  to  make  a 
stir  to  get  the  "  kingdom  of  Heaven  "  established  first ;  and 
then  repentance  and  moral  renovation  will  follow  of  course. 
The  machinery  of  human  motives  being,  we  are  sometimes 
assured,  altogether  out  of  order,  the  manufacture  of  charac- 
ters is  unavoidably  far  from  satisfactory.  And  not  unfre- 
quently  a  truly  surprising  amount  of  faith  is  manifested  in 
the  skill  of  certain  moral  mechanists,  who  promise  to  rectify 
the  disorder,  and  form  for  us  the  only  true  specimens  of 
men.  Self-interest  is  the  one  force  by  which  all  speculators 
of  this  class  propose  to  animate  their  new  framework  of 
society ;  its  application  being  ingeniously  distributed  so  as 
to  maintain  an  unerring  equilibrium,  and  smoothly  execute 
the  work  of  duty.  A  hard-worked  power  is  this  self-inter- 
est ;  by  which  vulgar  minds,  in  schools  of  philosophy  or  in 
councils  of  state,  have  from  an  early  age  thought  to  subdue 
and  manage  men  ;  but  from  which,  time  after  time,  they 
have  broken  loose  in  startling  and  remarkable  ways.  Against 
this  reliance  for  human  improvement  on  institutions  and 
economical  organization,  apart  from  agencies  internal  and 
spiritual.  Providence  and  history  enter  a  perpetual  protest. 
And  it  behooves  all  wise  men  to  add  their  voices  too :  the 
more  so,  because  it  is  the  tendency  of  our  times  rather  to 
criticise  society,  than  to  ennoble  and  sanctify  individuals ; 
to  apply  trading  analogies  to  great  questions  of  human  im- 
provement ;  to  place  as  implicit  a  faith  in  the  omnipotence 
of  self-interest  in  morals  as  of  steam  in  the  arts ;  forgetting 
that  between  the  grossest  and  the  most  refined  form  of  this 
principle,  there  can  only  be  the  difference  between  the 
cannibal  and  the  epicure.  Let  us  not  glorify  the  body  of 
civilization,  and  overlook  its  soul ;  and  while  luxuriating  in 
its  fruits,  neglect  the  waters  at  its  secret  root. 

The  systematic  socialist,  who  is  confident  he  *'  can  explain 
the  orio:in  of  evil,"  and  no  less  Sure  that  he  can  remove  it 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD    WITHIN    US.  91 

by  a  kind  of  mental  engineering  or  exact  computation  of 
human  wants  and  desires,  is  the  extreme  exemplification  of 
this  spirit.  In  order  to  indicate  the  fallacy  of  his  scheme, 
it  is  not  necessary  to  travel  beyond  his  own  class  of  illustra- 
tions. He  perpetually  calls  the  arrangements  into  which  he 
proposes  to  fit  the  world,  a  "  machine."  In  every  machine 
there  is  a  power  to  move,  and  a  resistance  to  be  overcome : 
and  in  this  particular  project  for  curing  the  errors  and 
perfecting  the  minds  of  men,  it  is  clear  that  the  social 
organization  is  relied  upon  as  the  power  to  repress  the 
human  passions  and  will,  considered  as  resistance.  Yet,  as 
organization  is  nothing  in  itself,  but  merely  a  disposition  of 
parts  through  which  force  may  be  transmitted  from  point 
to  point,  no  effect  can  ensue  till  it  is  filled  and  animated 
with  some  energy  not  its  own :  nor  in  this  case  can  the 
boasted  engine  of  improvement  be  worked  but  by  the  very 
minds  it  is  intended  to  control :  and  the  power  and  the 
resistance  being  thus  the  same,  the  machine  must  stand  still, 
as  certainly  as  the  inventions  on  which  sciolists  waste  their 
ingenuity  for  producing  perpetual  motion  and  self-revolving 
wheels.  Or,  to  take  an  illustration  from  morals  rather  than 
from  physics,  it  is  the  same  mistake,  by  which  a  disorderly 
mind  expects  to  acquire  faithfulness  and  punctuality  of  con- 
science from  a  neatly-arranged  list  of  employments,  and  well- 
filled  scheme  for  the  disposal  of  the  hours.  While  the  force 
of  good  resolve  which  produced  the  list  remains,  the  self- 
made  law  continues  to  be  obeyed,  and  the  programme  looks 
up  with  a  grave  and  venerable  authority.  But  the  occasion 
passes,  the  tension  of  the  heart  relaxes,  temptations  crowd 
and  hurry  back :  and  the  slips  of  conscience  recommence, 
and  confusion  triumphs  again,  though  the  paper  plans  of 
duty  are  symmetrical  as  ever ;  looking  now  with  vain  re- 
monstrance at  our  rebellion,  till  discarded  and  trodden 
under  foot  for  reminding  us  of  our  departed  allegiance. 

It  is  far  from  my  desire  to  speak  lightly  of  the  impor- 
tance of  institutional  and  political  change.     But  perhaps,  at 


92  THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD   WITHII^  US. 

the  present  day,  the  true  light  in  which  to  regard  it  is,  that 
its  function  is  to  check  evil  rather  than  create  positive  good  ; 
to  prevent,  by  timely  removal,  an  injurious  variance  between 
the  mind  of  a  people  and  its  ways ;  and  leave  room  for  the 
unembarrassed  operations  of  all  active  causes  of  improve- 
ment that  may  spread  from  the  centres  of  private  life. 
More  than  this  is  usually  expected  ;  the  intensity  of  political 
passion  exaggerates  the  magnitude  of  the  stake  :  and  hence, 
measures,  or  the  defeat  of  measures,  of  social  innovation, 
usually  disappoint  by  the  smallness  of  the  result ;  while  the 
conceptions  and  acts  of  single  minds,  piercing  the  deeps  of 
human  sympathy,  and  touching  the  springs  of  the  human 
will,  often  start  from  secrecy  and  neglect  to  a  power  tran- 
scendent and  sublime.  While  the  vastest  and  best-executed 
schemes  of  subversion  and  reconstruction  are  necessarily 
transient,  the  creation  of  deep  individual  faith  is  the  mighti- 
est and  most  permanent  of  human  powers. 

For  an  example  we  need  only  turn  to  the  grandest  of 
revolutions,  the  travels  and  triumphs  of  Christianity  itself. 
We  do  injustice  to  the  gospel,  and  gratuitously  lessen  the 
wonder  of  its  spread,  when  we  speak  of  it  as  a  system,  de- 
liberately projecting  the  downfall  of  the  existing  order  of 
things,  and  urged  on  mainly  by  the  physical  power  or  in- 
tellectual persuasion  of  miracle.  No  comprehensive  scheme 
of  policy,  no  continuous  plan,  no  study  of  effect  how- 
ever benevolent,  can  be  traced  in  our  Lord's  ministry. 
These  ingenuities  are  the  necessary  resort  of  our  feeble 
minds,  which  have  to  adapt  themselves  with  nicety  to 
foreign  causes,  to  conciliate  events  instead  of  commanding 
them,  to  accumulate  power  by  making  each  step  contrib- 
ute something  to  the  next.  But  where  there  is  an  exuber- 
ance of  strength,  and  every  moment  is  in  itself  equal  to 
the  demand  made  upon  it,  the  soul  may  retain  its  divine 
freedom,  unchained  by  the  successive  links  of  preconceived 
arrangement.  Art  and  strategy  constitute  the  wisdom  of 
those  whose  ends  must  be  gained  against  the  wills  of  others; 


THE   KINGDOM   OF    GOD    WITHIN    US.  93 

but  are  misplaced  in  those  who  act  upon  and  by  their  loving 
and  consenting  mind.  There  is  a  wisdom  of  the  under- 
standing, arising  from  foresight^  which  demands  policy; 
there  is  a  higher  wisdom  of  the  soul,  derived  from  insight^ 
which  dispenses  with  it.  To  discern  "  that  which  is  before 
and  after,"  has  been  pronounced  the  great  human  preroga- 
tive :  but  to  see  clearly  that  which  is  within^  is  the  divine. 
And  this  was  Christ's  ;  the  source  of  that  majestic  power 
by  which,  as  the  hierophant  and  interpreter  of  the  god-like 
in  the  soul,  he  uttered  everlasting  oracles.  He  penetrated 
through  the  film  to  the  inner  mystery  and  silence  of  our 
nature  :  and  when  he  spake,  an  instant  music,  —  as  of  a 
minster  organ  touched  by  spirits  at  midnight,  —  thrilled  and 
made  a  low  chant  within.  Oh,  when  speech  is  given  to  a 
soul  holy  and  true  as  his,  time,  and  its  dome  of  ages,  be- 
comes as  a  mighty  whispering  gallery,  round  which  the 
imprisoned  utterance  runs  and  reverberates  for  ever  !  His 
awful  vows  in  the  wilderness,  the  mournful  breathings  of 
Olivet,  the  mellow  voice  that  led  the  hymn  at  the  Last  Sup- 
per, the  faint  cries  of  Calvary,  the  solemn  assurance  that 
heaven  and  God  dwell  in  us,  —  do  they  not  ring  and  vibrate 
in  our  hearts  unto  this  day  ?  It  was  not  chiefly  the  force 
of  external  miracle  on  the  convictions,  not  the  logical  per- 
suasion of  l^s  mere  authority,  not  even  the  soundness  and 
reasonableness  of  his  doctrine,  that  gave  to  his  religion  its 
penetrative  power ;  but  the  mind  itself,  of  which  his  life  and 
discourse  were  but  the  symbol  and  expression ;  the  clearness 
and  beauty  with  which  he  revealed  that  portion  of  the  Deity 
that  may  dwell  in  man,  and  by  action  as  well  as  words 
proved  the  reality  of  holiness,  cast  to  the  winds  the  doubts 
that  hung  as  foul  mists  around  all  that  was  divine,  and 
drew  it  forth  from  the  world's  background  of  night  in 
colors  soft  as  the  rainbow,  yet  intense  as  the  sun.  Had  the 
soul  of  Christ  been  different,  in  vain  would  all  external  en- 
dowments of  verbal  truth  and  physical  omnipotence  have 
been  accumulated  on  him.     It  was  that  spirit  witliin,  —  the^ 


94  THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD   WITHIN   US. 

impersonation  of  heavenly  love  and  light,  —  that  retained 
around  him  by  unconscious  attraction  tlie  little  band  of 
simj)le  men,  to  whom  it  was  "  the  Father's  good  pleasure  to 
give"  this  "  kingdom  "  —  this  transcendent  dominion  over 
the  human  heart.  It  was  this  that  imparted  to  them  their 
best  inspiration,  and  made  them  missionaries  and  martyrs ; 
that  followed  them  like  an  unearthly  vision  through  life,  in 
persecution  and  peril  giving  them  "  that  very  hour  what 
they  ought  to  say ; "  in  temptation  and  conflict  coming  as 
"■  an  angel  to  strengthen  "  them  ;  in  prison  and  in  bonds 
enabling  them  to  say,  "  but  none  of  these  things  move  us." 
Here  was  one  of  God's  great  powers  abroad  among  men, 
which  it  was  impossible  should  die.  True,  the  world's  heart 
seemed  old  and  withered  :  the  more  perhaps  would  the  new 
element  spread,  like  a  fire  bursting  in  the  heart  of  a  forest 
dry  and  dead.  Soon,  in  the  dark  and  unvisited  recesses  of 
many  an  ancient  city,  there  lurked  a  living  point  of  faith ; 
perceptible  at  first  only  in  the  altered  countenance  of  the 
Jew,  whose  lip  no  longer  curled  in  scorn,  and  w^hose  pride 
was  turned  to  mercy ;  or  in  the  opened  brow  of  the  slave, 
from  whom  abjectness  seemed  chased  away ;  or  in  the  mur- 
murs of  liappy  prayer,  that  strayed  from  some  wretched 
cabin  into  the  street,  mingling  there  with  the  trafiic,  the 
revelry,  the  curse.  This  was  the  faith  which  .was  to  tread 
the  earth  with  royalty  so  great ;  precisely,  be  it  observed, 
because  it  thus  began  its  march,  conquering  each  individual 
heart  that  came  nearest  to  its  reach,  and  leaving  there  a 
garrison  of  truth  and  love,  before  passing  on  to  newer  vic- 
tories. Thus  before  the  holiness  of  Christ,  which  was  and 
is  the  supreme  energy  of  the  gospel,  the  craft  of  hierarchies, 
and  the  force  of  governments,  and  the  inertia  of  a  massive 
civilization,  gave  way.  And  while  thousands  of  state-proj- 
ects on  the  vastest  scale  have  been  conceived,  executed,  and 
foigotten ;  while  on  the  field  of  history  the  repeated  tramp 
of  armies  has  been  heard  to  approach,  to  pass  by,  to  die 
gaway  ;  while  the  noise  of  shifting  nations,  and  the  shriek  of 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD   WITHIN   US.  95 

revolutions,  have  gone  up  from  earth  to  heaven,  and  left 
silence  once  more  behind,  —  this  meek  power  triumphs  over 
all ;  speaking  with  a  persuasion  which  no  vicissitudes  of 
language  can  render  obsolete,  and  throughout  the  ever- 
varying  abodes  of  humanity  singing  its  sweet  songs  to  our 
heavy  hearts. 

The  revival  of  Christianity  from  its  corruptions  illustrates 
the  same  truth  ;  that  the  greatest  social  changes  begin  in 
the  creation  of  individual  faith.  I  am  aware  that  both  the 
origin  and  the  reformation  of  our  religion  are  sometimes 
appealed  to  by  sceptical  and  subversive  minds,  as  justifying 
contentment  with  their  method  of  procedure,  which  consists 
only  in  destroying  something  falsely  esteemed  venerable.  No 
doubt,  on  a  first  view,  both  these  revolutions  seem  to  have 
overturned  a  great  deal.  But  on  nearer  inspection  this 
character  will  be  found  to  have  belonged  to  them  as  a  mere 
accident,  not  as  their  essence  ;  as  a  symptom  of  something 
deeper,  not  as  their  ultimate  spirit.  Neither  of  them  was  a 
merely  negative  and  disorganizing  agency,  simply  annihilat- 
ing a  sacred  system  of  ideas :  but  each,  on  the  contrary, 
was  a  positive  and  creative  power,  putting  into  the  mind, 
not  doubts,  but  faith ;  not  emptying  and  closing  up  the 
shrine  of  the  secret  heart,  but  consecrating  and  opening  it 
afresh  for  worship.  As  new  faiths  however  demand  new 
forms,  and  a  living  religion  cannot  find  a  fitting  church  in 
the  dead  body  of  an  old  one,  temples,  rites,  and  priests,  that 
once  had  greatness,  ceased  to  be,  replaced  by  other  and 
sincerer  ones.  Thus,  it  is  true,  these  revolutions  over- 
whelmed ancient  institutions,  but  only  by  creating  new 
ideas  :  their  internal  spirit  was  organic  ;  their  external 
effect,  only,  subversive.  The  Reformation  can  never  be 
properly  understood,  so  long  as  it  is  looked  at  either  in 
the  light  of  a  change  of  doctrines,  or  a  publication  of  the 
right  of  the  intellect  to  free  inquiry.  It  was,  essentially, 
a  substitution  of  individual  faith  for  sacerdotal  reliance,  of 
personal  religion  for  ecclesiastical   obedience.      The    same 


96  THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD    WITHIN   US. 

spirit,  in  a  less  healthy  form,  reappeared,  to  reproduce  the 
same  phenomena,  when  Methodism  arose,  and  diffused  itself 
with  gradual  but  triumphant  power  from  the  earnest  souls 
of  the  Wesleys.  In  all  these  instances,  the  regenerative 
influence  commences  its  action  whh  the  great  mass  of  the 
people  :  for  it  is  an  apparent  law  of  Providence,  that  while 
in  society  knowledge  descends^  faiths  ascend :  while  science, 
doubt,  opinion,  all  ideas  of  the  understanding,  gravitate 
from  the  few  to  the  many;  affections,  convictions,  truths 
of  the  conscience  and  the  heart,  rise  from  the  many  to  the 
few. 

Those  who  are  unused  to  this  mode  of  conceiving  of 
human  improvement,  as  spreading  from  secret  centres  to  a 
wide  circumference,  and  who  are  accustomed  to  the  notion 
of  civilization  by  external  agencies,  may  perhaps  adduce  the 
printing-press  as  an  instance  of  a  vast  engine  of  ameliora- 
tion, mechanical  rather  than  moral.  It  is  obvious  however 
that  the  press,  with  all  its  magic,  is  not  a  power  in  itself, 
but  a  mere  instrument;  —  a  ^oo?,  whose  influence,  in  kind 
and  degree,  depends  altogether  on  the  spiritual  forces  that 
wield  it ;  which  might  be  given  to  the  savage,  without  pro- 
ducing the  smallest  fruits  of  culture ;  and  to  a  community 
of  the  vicious,  without  producing  any  culture  that  is  good. 
It  is  simply  an  implement  for  the  transmission  of  mental 
action  ;  and  it  is  the  thought,  not  the  machinery,  that  works 
the  wonders  of  which  we  boast.  Its  function  is,  to  bring 
into  contact  such  minds  as  there  are ;  and,  as  in  private 
intercourse,  it  depends  on  the  character  of  those  minds, 
whether  is  circulated  the  vitality  of  health,  or  the  conta- 
gion of  disease.  It  is  true  indeed  that,  in  the  long  run,  the 
highest  spirits  are  always  the  strongest  too  :  but  this  is  a 
law  of  nature,  which  human  inventions  did  not  make  and 
cannot  alter  :  and  the  press,  giving  equal  voice  to  all,  leaves 
the  proportionate  influence  of  different  orders  of  minds 
precisely  where  it  was ;  widening  the  empire,  but  not  re- 
disposing  of  the  victory.     And  after  all,  it  cannot  serve  as 


THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD   WITHIN  US.  97 

an  equivalent  to  the  living  individual  action  of  soul  on  soul. 
Who  will  compare  a  printed  Testament  with  the  voice  and 
presence  of  an  Apostle  ?  The  words  may  be  the  same,  and 
what  is  called  the  meaning  may  be  apprehended  :  but  see 
how  listlessly  the  poor  laborer  in  his  cottage  turns  over  the 
dead  page,  missing  the  comment  of  imploring  gesture,  and 
kindling  eye,  and  earnest  tones,  which  doubtless  pierced  and 
fired  the  audience  of  Paul ! 

To  individual  faithfulness  then,  to  the  energy  of  the  pri- 
vate conscience,  has  God  committed  the  real  history  and 
progress  of  mankind.  In  the  scenes  wherein  we  daily  move, 
from  capacities  common  to  us  all,  do  drop  the  seeds  from 
which,  if  ever,  the  Paradise  of  God  must  grow  and  blossom 
upon  the  earth.  He  that  can  be  true  to  his  best  and  secret 
nature,  that  can,  by  faith  and  patience,  conquer  the  struggling 
world  within,  is  most  likely  to  send  forth  a  blessed  power  to 
vanquish  the  world  without.  Mysteries  of  influence  fall  from 
every  earnest  volition,  to  return  to  us,  in  gladness  or  in 
weeping,  after  many  days.  No  insult  can  we  pass  upon  the 
divine  but  gentle  dignity  of  duty,  no  quenching  of  God's 
spirit  can  we  allow,  that  will  not  prepare  a  curse  for  others 
as  well  as  for  ourselves  :  nor  any  reverence,  prompt  and  due, 
in  act  as  in  thought,  can  we  pay  to  the  God  within,  that  will 
not  yield  abundant  blessing.  "  See  then  that  ye  walk  cir- 
cumspectly, not  as  fools,  but  as  wise." 


XI. 

THE    CONTENTMENT   OF    SORROW. 


Isaiah  liii.  10. 
yet  it  pleased  the  lord  to  bkuise  him  ;  he  hath  put  him  to  grief. 

Feom  age  to  age  mankind  have  importunately  sought  for 
the  reasons  of  sorrow ;  and  from  age  to  age  have  returned 
from  the  quest  unsatisfied  ;  for  still  is  the  question  con- 
stantly renewed.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  As  sickness 
entered  house  after  house,  and  waste  made  havoc  on  genera- 
tion after  generation,  it  was  inevitable  that  our  terrified 
hearts,  ever  clinging  to  that  which  must  be  wrenched  away, 
and  warmed  by  that  which  must  be  stricken  by  the  frosts  of 
death  in  our  embrace,  should  cry,  "  Oh  why  these  cruel  mes- 
sages of  separation,  these  decrees  of  exile  thrown  amid 
groups  of  friends  and  kindred  ? "  But  the  angel  of  de- 
struction makes  no  reply  :  silently  he  executes  his  mission  : 
only  he  relents  not ;  and  whether  he  be  met  by  tears  and 
prayers,  or  by  frowns  and  the  deplorable  affectation  of  de- 
fiance, he  does  his  sacred  bidding,  and  passes  on.  It  would 
seem  that  our  passionate  curiosity,  which  continues  to  urge 
its  "  whyf''  is  never  to  be  satisfied  ;  but  still  to  hand  down 
its  question  as  the  eternal  and  unanswered  cry  of  the  human 
race.  And  however  impatient  some  minds  may  feel  at  our 
helpless  struggles  with  this  difficulty,  the  thoughtful  will 
acquiesce  in  them  tranquilly.  For  they  know  that  it  is  of 
such  unsolved  problems,  of  such  mental  strife  with  the  mys- 
terious, which  uses  up  our  knowledge,  and  lets  us  fall  upon 
our  conscious  ignorance,  that  religion  has  its  birth ;  and  that 
the  perpetual  renewal  of  this  great  controversy  maintains 


THE   CONTENTMENT   OF    SORKOW.  99 

the  soul  in  that  intermediate  position  between  the  known 
and  the  incomprehensible,  the  finite  and  the  infinite,  which 
excludes  as  well  the  dogmatism  of  certainty  as  the  apathy  of 
nescience  and  chance,  and  calls  up  that  wonder,  reverence, 
and  trust,  which  are  the  fitting  attributes  of  our  nature. 
There  is  a  sense  in  which  the  maxim  has  a  profound  truth, 
that  "  ignorance  is  the  mother  of  devotion  ; "  —  a  sense  how- 
ever by  no  means  justifying  the  continuance  of  any  igno- 
rance which  can  be  removed,  or  can  degrade  one  human 
being  below  another ;  but  tending  to  reconcile  us  to  such  as 
may  be  rendered  inevitable  by  the  limits  assigned  to  our 
faculties.  If  men  knew  every  thing,  they  would  venerate 
nothing :  reverence  is  not  the  affection  with  which  objects 
of  knowledge,  as  such,  are  regarded ;  and  to  place  any  ob- 
ject of  thought  under  the  eye  of  religious  contemplation,  it 
must  be  stationed  above  the  region  of  distinct  perception,  in 
the  shadows  of  that  infinitude  which  sleeps  so  awfully 
around  the  luminous  boundaries  of  our  knowledge.  In  this 
position  is  the  great  question  respecting  the  amount  of  evil 
in  human  life ;  near  the  highest  summit  of  our  knowledge, 
and  the  deepest  root  of  our  religion. 

To  the  demand  of  the  human  heart  for  less  suffering  and 
a  more  liberal  dispensation  of  happiness,  no  answer,  as /rom 
God^  can  be  discovered  in  Scripture  or  in  philosophy;  and 
all  attempts  to  assign  his  reasons  for  the  present  adjust- 
ments of  the  world  in  this  respect  have,  I  believe,  signally 
failed.  But  it  is  otherwise  when  we  attempt  an  answer,  as 
from  ourselves  ;  when,  instead  of  taking  for  granted  that 
the  demand  is  just,  and  waiting  till  it  obtains  its  reply  from 
without,  we  look  into  the  demand  itself,  and  ask  whether  it 
is  wise  and  right ;  whether  it  comes  from  a  condition  of 
the  understanding  and  the  heart  desirable  and  excellent, 
or  disordered  and  ignoble.  Paradox  as  it  may  seem,  it  is, 
I  conceive,  still  true,  that  the  state  of  mind  which  urges 
the  question  is  necessarily  incapable  of  understanding  the 
answer. 


100  THE   CONTENTMENT   OF    SORBOW. 

At  the  foundation  of  all  our  difficulties  and  questionings 
respecting  the  evils  of  our  lot,  is  a  secretly-cherished  no- 
tion, that  we  have  a  right  to  a  more  advantageous  condi- 
tion. "We  imagine  ourselves  in  some  way  ill-treated,  and 
think  we  might  fairly  have  expected  a  happier  life.  "We 
speak  as  beings  who  had  formed  anticipations  more  san- 
guine than  have  been  realized.  The  feeling  that  asks  for 
more  happiness  has  evidently  a  private  standard  of  its  own, 
by  which  it  tries  the  sufficiency  of  its  own  enjoyment;  —  an 
ideal  measure  which  it  applies  in  its  judgment  of  the  actual 
providence  of  God ;  and  this  is  the  rule  by  which  alone  the 
estimate  of  that  providence  is  made.  Now  what  is  the 
origin  of  this  criterion  to  which  w;e  submit  the  decision  of 
the  solemn  question  respecting  the  character  of  God  ?  How 
do  we  make  up  our  conceptions  of  the  amount  of  happiness 
which  we  may  fittingly  expect?  There  is  but  one  school  in 
which  all  our  expectations  are  trained,  viz.  experience  ;  but 
one  source  of  belief  respecting  the  future,  viz.  knowledge  of 
the  past ;  that  which  actually  has  heen^  dictates  all  our  ideas 
of  what  possibly  may  he.  That  image  then  of  adequately 
happy  life  which  we  complain  of  not  realizing,  that  picture 
which  would  perfect  our  content,  is  a  repetition  of  what  we 
have  felt,  a  miniature  of  our  habitual  consciousness,  painted 
in  the  colors  of  positive  experience.  Our  present  ideal  is 
God's  past  reality ;  nor  could  we  ever  have  framed  even  the 
notion  of  such  enjoyment,  had  not  our  own  lot  been  one  of 
peace :  by  blessing  us,  he  gives  us  the  power  to  entertain 
hard  thoughts  of  him ;  and  we  take  occasion,  from  his 
claims  upon  our  gratitude,  to  judge  harshly  of  his  govern- 
ment. Had  he  made  us  miserable  (as  we  now  count  misery), 
inured  us  to  severities  so  constant  as  even  to  shut  out  the 
conception  of  any  thing  better,  we  should  have  been  ready 
with  a  song  of  thanksgiving  for  the  mercies  of  a  lot  now 
raising  only  murmurs.  Impious  perversity,  that  thus  ren- 
ders to  God  evil  for  good,  and,  in  answer  to  blessing,  mut- 
ters forth  a  curse ! 


THE   CONTENTMENT   OF   SORROW.  101 

That  the  tacit  claim  which  we  make  upon  Providence 
has  really  its  origin  in  a  happy  experience,  is  confirmed  by  a 
fact  often  noticed,  that  habitual  sufferers  are  precisely  those 
who  least  frequently  doubt  the  divine  benevolence,  and 
whose  faith  and  love  rise  to  the  serenest  cheerfulness.  Pos- 
sessed by  no  idea  of  a  prescriptive  title  to  be  happy,  their 
blessings  are  not  benumbed  by  anticipation,  but  come  to 
them  fresh  and  brilliant  as  the  first  day's  morning  and 
evening  light  to  the  dwellers  in  Paradise.  Instead  of  the 
dulness  of  custom,  they  have  the  power  of  miracle.  With 
the  happy,  it  is  their  constant  peace  that  seems  to  come  by 
nature,  and  to  be  blunted  by  its  commonness,  —  and  their 
griefs  to  come  from  God,  sharpened  by  their  sacred  origin  : 
with  the  sufferer,  it  is  his  pain  that  appears  to  be  a  thing  of 
course,  and  to  require  no  explanation,  while  his  relief  is  rev- 
erently welcomed  as  a  divine  interposition,  and,  as  a  breath 
of  heaven,  caresses  the  heart  into  melodies  of  praise.  When 
the  great  Father,  in  his  everlasting  watch,  paces  his  daily 
and  nightly  rounds,  and  through  these  lower  mansions  of 
his  house  gathers  in  the  offered  desires  of  his  children, 
where,  think  you,  does  he  hear  the  tones  of  deepest  love, 
and  see  on  the  uplifted  face  the  light  of  most  heartfelt  grati- 
tude ?  Not  where  his  gifts  are  most  profuse,  but  where 
they  seem  most  meagre  ;  not  where  the  suppliant's  worship 
glides  forth  from  the  cushion  of  luxury,  through  lips  satiated 
with  plenty,  and  rounded  by  health ;  not  within  the  halls  of 
successful  ambition,  or  even  the  dwellings  of  unbroken  do- 
mestic peace  ;  but  where  the  outcast,  flying  from  persecu- 
tion, kneels  in  the  evening  upon  the  rock  whereon  he  sleeps ; 
at  the  fresh  grave,  where,  as  the  earth  is  opened,  heaven 
in  answer  opens  too  ;  by  the  pillow  of  the  wasted  sufferer, 
where  the  sunken  eye,  denied  sleep,  converses  with  a  silent 
star,  and  the  hollow  voice  enumerates  in  low  prayer  the 
scanty  list  of  comforts,  and  shortened  tale  of  hopes.  Genial, 
almost  to  miracle,  is  the  soil  of  sorrow  ;  wherein  the  small- 
est seed  of  love,  timely  falling,  becometh  a  tree,  in  whose 


102  THE   CONTENTMENT   OF   SOEROW. 

foliage  the  birds  of  blessed  song  lodge  and  sing  unceaS' 
ingly.  And  the  doubts  of  God's  goodness,  whence  are 
they  ?  Rarely  from  the  weary  and  overburdened,  from 
those  broken  in  the  practical  service  of  grief  and  toil ;  but 
from  theoretic  students  at  ease  in  their  closets  of  medita- 
tion,  treated  themselves  most  gently  by  that  legislation  of 
the  universe  which  they  criticise  with  a  melancholy  so 
profound. 

There  are  indeed  those  who  discern  nothing  sanctifying 
in  sorrow ;  who  say  that  they  are  best  when  they  are  hap- 
piest,—  of  prompter  conscience,  of  nobler  faith,  of  more 
earnest  aspirations ;  who  seem  sunk  in  apathy  or  stung  into 
irritability  by  affliction  ;  and  who  pass  through  it,  finding 
therein  no  waters  of  life,  but  only  a  scorched  desert,  —  where 
the  earth  is  as  sand  beneath,  and  the  heavens  as  molten  fire 
above.  Those  whose  sympathies  thus  dry  up  and  wither  in 
grief,  as  if  a  hot  wind  had  swept  over  them,  are  infected 
with  the  fever  of  self.  In  the  inner  and  subterranean  cham- 
ber of  their  nature  are  no  cool  springs  of  affection,  collected 
from  the  treasured  dews  of  heaven,  but  nether  fires,  glow- 
ing outwards  to  meet  the  heats  that  strike  inwards  from  the 
skies.  They  are  given  over  to  the  insatiable  idea  of  mere 
happiness,  in  one  form  or  other ;  and,  this  ungratified,  find 
refreshment  in  nothing  more  divine.  Failing  in  the  passive 
half  of  life,  they  pride  themselves  on  the  energy  with  which, 
in  cheerful  days,  they  execute  their  active  duties.  But  it 
is  clear  that  these  are  not  executed  as  duties,  —  as  due,  that 
is,  to  the  high  and  holy  law  by  which  God  rules  us  with  pure 
affection.  They  have  no  deep  root  of  love,  but  grow  from 
some  shallower  sentiment,  —  the  sense  of  propriety,  the 
respect  of  opinion,  the  taste  for  order,  the  suggestions  of 
ambition  :  for  were  there  the  true  affectionate  heart  of  rev- 
erence, how  could  it  thus  stipulate  in  favor  of  its  own  self- 
will; —  how  litigate  with  God  for  ampler  wages;  —  how 
refuse  his  willing  service,  unless  the  post  of  command  and 
action  be  given,  and  grow  sullen  to  be  appointed  but  a  door- 


THE  CONTENTMENT   OF   SORROW.  103 

keeper  at  the  gate  of  his  tent  of  dwelling,  on  the  outside  of 
its  light  and  joy  ?  Certain  it  is  that  no  one  possessed  by  thig 
temper  can  be  the  true  disciple  of  the  man  of  sorrows,  or 
look  with  the  eye  of  Christ  on  nature  and  life.  No  holy 
spirit  fills  and  consecrates  their  scenes ;  no  silken  cords  of 
divine  love  weave  together  the  whole  tissue,  dark  or  gay, 
of  human  existence,  and  make  it  all  as  a  garment  of  God, 
more  sacred  than  prophet's  mantle.  What  difference  did 
it  make  to  Christ,  whether  in  the  wilderness  he  did  fierce 
battle  with  temptation ;  or  sat  on  the  green  slope  to  teach 
the  people,  and  send  them  home  as  if  God  had  dropped  upon 
their  hearts  amid  the  shades  of  evening :  whether  he  stood 
over  the  corpse,  and  looking,  on  the  dark  eyes,  said,  "  Let 
there  be  light,"  and  the  curtain  of  the  shadow  of  death  drew 
up  ;  or  saw  the  angel  of  duty  approach  himself  in  the  dress 
of  the  grave,  and  on  the  mournful  whisper  "  Come  away  " 
tendered  his  hand  and  was  meekly  led :  whether  his  walk 
was  over  strewn  flowers,  or  beneath  the  cross  too  heavy  to 
be  borne;  —  amid  the  cries  of  "Hosanna,"  or  the  murderous 
shout  ?  The  difference  was  all  of  pain ;  —  none  was  there  of 
conscience,  of  trust,  of  power,  of  love.  Let  there  be  a  con- 
scious affiliation  with  God ;  and  as  he  pervadeth  all  things, 
a  unity  is  imparted  to  life,  and  a  stability  to  the  mind,  which 
put  not  happiness  indeed,  but  character  and  will,  above  the 
reach  of  circumstance :  a  current  of  pure  and  strong  affec- 
tions, fed  by  the  fount  of  bliss,  pours  from  hidden  and  sun- 
lit heights,  and  winds  through  the  open  plains  and  dark 
ravines  of  life,  till  its  murmurs  fall  into  the  everlasting 
deep. 

Thus  far  our  complaints  against  the  evils  of  our  lot  would 
appear  to  indicate  a  wrong  state  of  mind  towards  God. 
The  disappointment  in  which  they  originate  is  the  result  of 
happy  experience  ;  and  had  we  never  been  blessed,  we  could 
never  be  querulous.  In  the  natural  place  of  affectionate 
retrospect,  we  suffer  the  intrusion  of  murmurs;  and  our 
quarrel  with  the  present  is  a  hostile  substitute  for  gratitude 


104  THE   CONTENTMENT  OF   SORROW. 

towards  the  past.  When  the  custom  of  God's  mercies  thus 
tempts  us  to  forget  that  they  are  gratuities,  and  hardens  us 
to  make  bold  claims  of  prescriptive  right ;  when  we  begin 
to  reckon  among  his  gifts  only  the  extraordinary  and  un- 
expected benefits  of  our  lot,  and,  measuring  his  goodness 
by  the  mere  overflowings  of  the  cup,  become  angry  when 
happiness  does  not  rise  to  the  brim,  —  it  is  time  for  our 
pampered  minds  to  learn,  by  discipline  of  grief,  a  less  way- 
ward temper :  the  canker  of  too  long  a  comfort  is  eating 
out  the  whole  religion  of  our  hearts.  We  are  dressing  up 
our  life,  as  if  it  were  the  eternal  palace  of  a  god,  instead  of 
the  brief  halt  and  hospice  of  the  pilgrim :  and  there  were 
mercy  in  the  stroke  that  should  lay  it  in  ruins,  and  send  our 
unsheltered  head  into  the  storm,  to  seek  our  rest  in  a  meeker 
and  more  suppliant  spirit.  It  is  no  mere  superstition  that 
leads  us  sometimes  to  say,  of  a  prosperity  and  outward  peace, 
that  it  is  "  too  great  to  last ;  "  not  indeed  that  any  blessing 
is  too  great  for  God  to  give,  but  only  too  great  for  us  to 
receive.  Freely  might  he  continue  it,  but  innocently  we 
should  scarce  enjoy  it,  in  perpetuity ;  and  it  is  the  intuitive 
perception  of  this,  the  secret  consciousness  that  the  upward 
gush  of  gratitude  is  growing  feebler,  —  that  the  incrustations 
of  ease  are  creeping  over  the  wells  of  spiritual  life,  —  that 
causes  us,  amid  our  comforts,  to  tremble  as  in  a  day  of  wrath, 
and  occasionally  sheds  over  the  brilliant  colors  of  enjoyment 
a  slight  and  mysterious  tinge  as  from  the  shadow  of  guilt. 
'Tis  awful  and  prophetic  as  the  handwriting  on  the  wall ; 
becoming  a  splendor,  as  of  the  heavens,  to  those  who  revere 
it,  and  a  blackness,  as  of  doom,  to  those  that  neglect  it. 
Blessed  are  they  that,  turning  an  eye  within,  can  discern 
and  interpret  it  betimes! 

And  if  our  complaints  of  trial  and  suffering  result  from  a 
wrong  state  of  mind  in  relation  to  God,  they  no  less  imply 
mistake  in  relation  to  ourselves  and  erroneous  ideas  of  our 
own  welfare.  At  least  our  griefs  of  bereavement  (which 
are  the  severest  of  all),  our  expostulations  with  death,  treat 


THE  CONTENTMENT  OF  SORROW.       105 

as  utterly  gone  treasures  whose  best  portion  is  with  us  still ; 
even  proved  to  be  present  by  the  very  tears  that  weep  their 
absence.  For  wherein  consists  the  value  of  parent,  child, 
or  friend  ?  Is  it  in  the  use  we  may  make  of  him,  or  in  the 
love  we  feel  for  him  ?  Is  it  in  his  form,  his  voice,  his  feat- 
ures,—  or  in  the  dear  memories  and  delightful  affections 
which  these  awaken  in  our  minds  ?  As  a  foreign  land  differs 
from  our  own,  not  in  its  soil,  but  in  its  recollections ;  as 
another  house  differs  from  our  own,  not  by  its  materials, 
but  by  the  spirit  of  its  associated  feelings,  not  as  a  substance, 
but  as  a  sign,  —  so  does  a  friend  differ  from  a  stranger,  not 
in  his  person,  but  in  his  power  over  our  hearts.  He  is 
nothing  to  us,  but  for  the  impression  he  leaves  upon  our 
souls,  to  present  which  is  the  mission  whereto  God  has  sent 
him,  and  the  office  for  which  we  love  him.  Of  all  the  in- 
gredients that  enter  into  that  infinitely  complex  thing,  a 
human  life,  of  all  the  influences  that  radiate  from  it,  and 
proclaim  it  tliere^  none  surely  are  so  essential  as  the  affections 
it  kindles  in  others ;  and  if  beings  around  entertain  of  it  a 
blessed  and  noble  conception,'  are  filled  by  it  with  generous 
aspirations,  and  feel  the  thought  of  it  to  be  as  a  fire  from 
heaven,  in  this  is  its  true  and  best  existence ;  in  this  consists 
its  real  identity,  distinguishing  it  by  strongest  marks  from 
other  minds.  And  all  this  does  death  leave  behind,  as  our 
indestructible  possession  :  from  our  mere  eyes  he  takes  the 
visible  form  of  the  objects  of  our  love  ;  for  this  is  only  bor- 
rowed :  from  our  souls  he  cannot  take  the  love  itself  to 
which  that  is  subservient ;  for  it  is  given  us  for  ever.  The 
very  grief  that  wastes  us  testifies  that,  in  his  true  worth, 
the  companion  we  lament  as  lost  is  with  us  still ;  for  is  it 
not  the  idea  of  him  that  weeps  in  us,  his  image  that  supplies 
the  tears?  His  best  offices  he  will  continue  to  us  yet,  if 
we  are  true  to  him;  with  serenest  look,  as  through  the 
windows  of  the  soul,  rebuking  our  disquiet,  bracing  our 
faith,  quickening  our  conscience,  and  cooling  the  fever-heats 
of  life.     Doubtless  the  thought  of  him  is  transmuted  from 


106  THE  CONTENTMENT  OF   SORROW. 

gladness  into  sorrow.  But  will  any  true  heart  say  that  an 
affection  is  an  evil  because  it  is  sad,  and  wish  to  shake  it 
off,  the  moment  it  brings  pain  ?  Call  it  what  you  will,  that 
is  not  love  which  itself  is  anxious  to  grow  cold :  the  emo- 
tions of  a  faithful  soul  never  entertain  a  suicidal  purpose, 
and  plan  their  own  extinction :  rather  do  they  reproach 
their  own  insensibility,  and  passionately  pray  for  a  greater 
vitality.  Whether  then  in  anxiety  or  in  peace,  in  joy  or  in 
regrets,  let  the  spirit  of  affection  stay ;  and  if  the  spirit  stay, 
the  objects,  though  vanished,  leave  their  best  presence  with 
us  still.  No;  that  only  is  truly  lost  which  we  have  ceased 
to  love  :  if  there  be  a  friend  whom  in  our  childhood  or  our 
youth  we  venerated  for  the  wisdom  of  virtue  and  beauty 
of  holiness,  and  whom  now  we  regard  with  the  aversion  of 
corrupted  tastes,  or  the  coldness  of  callous  hearts,  he  indeed 
is  lost :  if  there  be  a  companion  whose  hand  was  once  locked 
in  ours  with  the  vows,  seemingly  so  firm,  of  our  enthusiastic 
years,  and  on  whom  now  we  look  with  a  mind  frozen  by  the 
worldliness  or  poisoned  by  the  jealousies  and  rivalries  of 
life,  such  a  one  is  surely  lost :  but  not  the  departed  who  left 
our  world  with  benediction,  and  fell  close-locked  in  our  em- 
brace :  such  a  one,  though  dead,  yet  speaketh ;  the  others, 
though  living,  are  silent  to  our  hearts.  Of  the  alienated 
the  loss  is  absolute,  an  extinction  of  a  part  of  our  nature. 
But  the  sainted  dead  shall  finish  for  us  the  blessed  work 
which  they  began.  They  tarried  with  us,  and  nurtured  a 
human  love;  they  depart  from  us,  and  kindle  a  divine. 
Cease  then,  our  complaining  hearts,  and  wait  in  patience 
the  great  gathering  of  souls  I 


university; 

XII. 
IMMORTALITY. 


2  Corinthians  i.  9. 

we  had  the  sentence  of  death  in  ourselves,  that  we  should  not 
trust  in  ourselves,  but  in  god  who  raiseth  the  dead. 

Paul,  at  his  nearest  view  of  death,  obtained  his  firmest 
"  trust  in  God  who  raiseth  the  dead."  Socrates,  with  the 
cup  of  poison  in  his  hand,  declares  it  powerless :  and,  taking 
it  as  the  pledge  of  temporary  parting  from  his  weeping 
friends,  goes  cheerfully  forward  to  explore  the  future.  We, 
who  are  in  no  such  extremity,  but  at  ease  and  in  command 
of  the  strong  posts  of  life,  are  seduced  into  sceptic  misgiv- 
ings of  its  perpetuity,  and  are  conscious  of  at  least  transient 
doubts,  whether  soul  and  body  do  not  go  out  together. 
And  so  indeed  it  ever  is.  Amid  the  so-called  goods  of 
existence,  we  most  shudder  at  the  view  of  its  privations; 
while  from  active  contact  with  its  griefs,  its  grandeur 
appears  least  doubtful,  and,  in  the  bold  struggle  with  ills, 
they  prove  a  phantom  and  slip  away.  From  the  sunlit 
heights  of  life,  the  deep  vales  and  hollows  of  its  necessities 
look  darkest :  but  to  the  faithful  whose  path  lies  there,  there 
is  still  light  enough  to  show  the  way,  and  to  no  other  eyes 
do  the  everlasting  hills  and  blue  heavens  seem  so  brilliant. 
Our  nobler  faith  is  not  dashed,  as  we  suppose,  by  the  severi- 
ties, but  rather  enervated  by  the  indulgences,  of  experience  : 
it  is  on  the  bed  of  luxury,  not  on  the  rock  of  nature,  that 
scepticism  has  its  birth.  Paul,  the  hardly-entreated  apostle, 
the  homeless  and  ever-perilled  missionary,  —  his  back  scarred 
with   stripes,  his  hands  heavy  with  bonds,  the  outcast  of 


108  IMMORTALITY. 

Jewish  hate  and  Pagan  scorn,  —  writes  as  he  flies,  to  ask 
the  vohiptuous  Corinthians,  "  How  say  some  among  you 
that  there  is  no  resurrection  of  the  dead  ?  "  and  to  prove  in 
words  that  immortality  of  which  his  life  was  the  demon- 
stration in  action.  And  while  from  the  centre  of  comforts 
many  a  sad  fear  goes  forth,  and  the  warmest  lot  becomes 
often  filled  with  the  chillest  doubts,  hidden  within  it  like  a 
heart  of  ice  that  cannot  melt,  you  may  find  toiling  misery 
that  trusts  the  more,  the  more  it  is  stricken,  and  amid  the 
secret  prayers  of  mourners  hear  the  sweetest  tones  of  hope. 
This  paradox  is  far  from  being  inexplicable.  All  true 
religion  is  a  sense  of  want;  and  where  wants  go  to  sleep 
upon  possession,  it  becomes  bewildered,  and,  when  occa- 
sionally opening  its  eyes,  sees  nothing  with  the  clearness 
of  reality.  Religion  implies  a  perception  of  the  infinite  and 
invisible  ;  and  where  the  finite  is  illuminated  too  strongly, 
nothing  else  can  be  discerned,  and  all  beyond  appears,  not 
dim  twilight  shadow,  but  blank  darkness.  The  full-orbed 
brilliancy  of  life  brings  out  the  colors  of  the  earth,  and 
makes  it  seem  as  vast  and  solid  as  if  there  were  nothing  else  : 
in  the  midnight  watch,  it  is  felt  only  at  the  point  beneath 
our  feet,  and  the  sphere  of  stars  in  which  it  swims  alone  is 
seen.  Indeed  the  suspicion  that  this  life  is  our  all,  appears 
to  be  simply  an  example,  upon  a  large  scale,  of  a  delusion 
and  disproportion  of  idea  which  we  are  continually  ex- 
periencing in  detail,  and  without  whith  perhaps  our  discern- 
ing and  our  practical  energies  would  be  ill-harmonized.  I 
allude  to  that  exaggeration  of  the  present  moment,  that  con- 
centration of  anxiety  and  effort  on  the  present  object,  which 
makes  the  point  of  pending  action  every  thing,  and  for  a  time 
kills  the  reality  of  all  beside.  Desire,  else  broken  by  dis- 
persion, singles  out  project  after  project  in  succession,  on 
which  to  gather  all  its  intensity  :  each  in  turn  becomes  the 
vivid  and  sole  point  of  life :  as  the  eye  applied  to  the 
microscope  may  see  the  centre  of  the  field  without  notice 
of  the  margin  of  the  very  object  beneath  its  view.     This 


IMMORTALITY.  109 

optical  exclusiveness  of  mind,  this  successive  insulation  of 
effort,  is  the  needful  condition  on  which  the  will  performs 
its  work  with  gladness :  for  who  would  not  sink  and  faint 
upon  the  dust,  if  the  whole  task  of  existence  were  spread 
before  him  at  once  ?  Let  us  then  in  practice^  as  the  laborers 
of  God,  bless  him  for  our  blindness ;  but  in  meditation^  as 
the  believers  of  God  and  explorers  of  his  providence,  not 
on  that  account  deny  that  there  is  light.  Our  delusion, 
operating  in  detail,  is  corrected  by  experience,  which  shifts 
us  ever  to  a  new  point  of  view  :  and  how  often  do  we  smile 
in  retrospect  at  the  passionate  self-precipitation,  the  silent 
tension  or  stormy  force  of  desire,  with  which  we  bent 
towards  some  aim,  that  seemed  for  the  instant  the  very  goal 
of  life  :  the  eagle-eyed  precision  with  which  we  fell,  as  on  a 
prey,  upon  something  that  now  seems  one  of  the  most  trivial 
creatures  that  stirs  the  grass  !  Our  eyes  once  opened  thus, 
we  say  that  it  "  was  a  dream."  And  most  truly  :  for  those 
who  are  awake  always  discover  that  they  have  been  dreaming  ; 
but  those  who  dream  never  suspect  that  they  shall  wake. 
For  the  time,  the  images  of  sleep  are  the  intensest  of  reali- 
ties ;  they  are  the  sleeper's  universe ;  they  agitate  him  with 
hope  and  terror,  with  love  and  grief,  with  admiration  and 
transport,  as  genuine  as  human  heart  can  feel ;  while  they 
continue  to  flit  around  him,  they  shut  in  and  limit  his  belief, 
and  totally  exclude  the  conceptions  suitable  to  the  world  on 
which  he  lies.  And  so  is  it  with  the  long  trance  of  human 
life ;  we  are  ever  dreaming  to  the  present,  and  waking  to 
the  past;  clearly  estimating  each  illusion  when  it  is  gone, 
but  too  vividly  occupied  with  new  ones  to  expect  any  morn- 
ing summons  to  a  correcting  world  beyond.  Not  till  we 
are  startled  by  that  call,  and  stand  outside  our  existing 
sphere  of  thought,  can  we  discover  how  much  of  phantasm 
there  is  in  life  as  a  whole  ;  but  the  wise  will  assuredly  dis- 
trust their  feeling  of  its  exclusive  reality;  will  know  that 
if  it  were  a  mere  scenic  image,  a  painted  vacancy,  environed 
by  immense  and  solemn  realities,  this  same  feeling  would 


110  IMMOKTALITY. 

have  been  no  less  strong;  and  they  will  rouse  themselves 
so  far  as  at  least  to  "  dream  that  they  dream." 

The  feeling  of  impossibility  which,  I  believe,  haunts  many 
persons  in  adverting  to  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  the  vague 
apprehension  of  some  insui^erable  obstacle  to  the  realization 
of  any  thing  so  great,  appears  to  arise  from  mere  indolence 
of  conception  ;  and  vanishes  in  proportion  as  the  affections 
are  deeply  moved,  and  the  intuitions  of  reason  are  trusted 
rather  than  the  importunities  of  sense.  There  is  certainly 
nothing  in  our  idea  of  the  mind,  as  there  is  in  that  of  organi- 
zation, contradictory  of  the  belief  of  its  perpetuity ;  —  noth- 
ing which  involves  the  notion  of  dissolution,  or  of  limited 
duration.  All  the  properties  of  the  thinking  principle,  re- 
membrance, imagination,  love,  conscience,  volition,  are  irre- 
spective of  time ;  are  characterized  by  nothing  seasonal ;  are 
incapable  of  disease,  fracture,  or  decay.  They  have  nothing 
in  their  nature  to  prescribe  their  existence  for  an  hour,  a 
century,  a  thousand  years,  or  in  any  way  to  bring  them  to 
termination.  Were  it  the  will  of  the  Creator  to  change  his 
arrangements  for  mankind,  and  to  determine  that  they  should 
henceforth  live  in  this  world  ten  or  a  hundred  times  as  long 
as  they  do  at  present,  no  one  would  feel  that  new  sow^s  would 
be  required  for  the  execution  of  the  design.  And  in  the 
mere  conception  of  unlimited  existence  there  is  nothing 
more  amazing  than  in  that  of  unlimited  non-existence ;  there 
is  no  more  mystery  in  the  mind  living  for  ever  in  the  future, 
than  in  its  having  been  kept  out  of  life  through  an  eternity 
in  the  past.  The  former  is  a  negative,  the  latter  a  positive 
infinitude.  And  the  real,  the  authentic  wonder,  is  the  actual 
J'act  of  the  transition  having  been  made  from  the  one  to  the 
other ;  and  it  is  far  more  incredible  that  from  not  having 
been,  we  are,  than  that  from  actual  being,  we  shall  continue 
to  be. 

And  if  there  be  no  speculative  impossibility  in  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul,  it  cannot  be  rendered  inconceivable 
by  any  physical  considerations  connected  with  death.     We 


IMMORTALITY.  Ill 

are  apt,  indeed,  to  be  misled  by  the  appearances  of  tbe  last 
hour ;  appearances  so  appalling,  so  humbling,  so  associated 
with  the  memories  of  happy  affection  and  the  approach  of 
bleakest  solitude,  .that  it  would  be  surprising  if  we  did 
not  interpret  them  amiss,  and  see  them  falsely  through  our 
tears.  As  we  turn  away  from  that  last  agony,  we  are 
tempted  to  say  in  our  despair,  —  there,  there,  is  the  visi- 
ble return  of  all  to  darkness  ;  the  proof  that  all  is  gone ; 
the  fall  of  the  lamp  into  the  death-stream.  Yet  it  is 
clear  that  neither  the  phenomena  of  death,  nor  any  other 
sensible  impression,  can  afford  the  least  substantive  evi- 
dence that  the  mind  has  ceased  to  be.  Non-existence  is  a 
negation,  which  neither  sight  can  see,  nor  ear  can  hear : 
and  the  fading  eye,  the  motionless  lips,  the  chill  hand,  es- 
tablish nothing,  and  simply  give  us  no  report :  refusing  us 
the  familiar  expression  of  the  soul  within,  they  leave  the 
great  question  open,  to  be  determined  by  any  positive  prob- 
abilities which  may  be  sought  in  other  directions.  In  life, 
we  never  saw  or  heard  the  principle  of  thought  and  will 
and  love,  but  only  its  corporeal  effects  in  lineament  and 
speech.  '  If  the  bare  absence  of  these  signs  were  suflScient 
to  prove  the  extinction  of  the  spirit  which  they  obey,  the 
spectacle  of  sleep  would  justify  us  in  pronouncing  the 
mind  dead  ;  and  if  neither  slumber  nor  silence  have  been 
found  to  afford  reason  for  the  denial  of  simultaneous  thought, 
death  affords  no  better  ground  for  the  dreary  inference.  It 
is  to  no  purpose  to  say,  that  we  have  not  experience  of  the 
separability  of  consciousness  from  bodily  life  ;  for  originally 
there  was  no  experience  of  the  separability  of  consciousness 
from  bodily  waking  ;  and  with  the  same  reason  which  would 
lead  us  to  mourn  the  extinction  of  a  friend's  spirit  in  death, 
might  Adam  have  bewailed  the  annihilation  of  Eve  in  the 
first  sleep  of  Eden.  Nay,  if  we  are  not  to  conceive  of  the 
existence  of  a  friend,  where  there  is  no  physical  manifesta- 
tion, it  will  follow  that  till  there  was  a  visible  creation,  there 
was  no  Infinite  Spirit :  and  that  if  ever  the  Creator  shall 


112  EVIMOKTALITY. 

cast  aside  the  mantle  of  his  works,  if  the  order,  the  beauty, 
the  magnificence,  of  the  universe,  through  which  he  appears 
to  us  and  hides  his  essence  behind  the  symbol  of  his  infini- 
tude, are  ever  to  have  their  period  anc^  vanish,  if  ancient 
prediction  shall  be  fulfilled,  and  "  the  heavens  pass  away 
with  a  noise,  and  the  elements  melt  with  fervent  heat,"  that 
hour  will  be,  by  the  same  rule  which  declares  human  annihila- 
tion, not  only  the  end  of  all  things,  but  the  death  of  God. 

Indeed  there  is  that  in  the  very  nature  of  the  immaterial 
mind,  which  appears  to  me  to  exempt  it  from  the  operation 
of  all  material  evidence  of  its  destruction.  It  is  impossible 
to  form  a  steady  conception  of  thought^  except  as  origi- 
nating behind  even  the  innermost  bodily  structures,  and 
intrinsically  different  from  them.  However  much  you  refine 
and  attenuate  the  living  organism,  yet,  after  all,  thought  is 
something  quite  unlike  the  whitest  and  the  thinnest  tissue  ; 
and  the  most  delicate  of  fibres,  woven  if  you  please  in  fairy 
loom,  can  never  be  spun  into  emotions.  Nor  is  it  at  all  easier 
to  imagine  ideas  and  feelings  to  be  the  results  of  organiza- 
tion, and  to  constitute  one  of  the  physical  relations  of 
atoms;  and  if  any  one  affirms  that  the  juxtaposition  of 
a  number  of  particles  makes  a  hope,  and  that  an  aggrega- 
tion of  curious  textures  forms  veneration,  he  affirms  a  propo- 
sition to  which  I  can  attach  no  idea.  Agitate  and  affect 
these  structures  as  you  will,  pass  them  through  every  im- 
aginable change,  let  them  vibrate  and  glow,  and  take  a 
thousand  hues ;  still  you  can  get  nothing  but  motion,  and 
temperature,  and  color;  fit  marks  and  curious  signals  of 
thought  behind  themselves,  but  no  more  to  be  confounded 
with  it,  than  are  written  characters  to  be  mistaken  for  the 
genius  and  knowledge  which  may  record  themselves  in  lan- 
guage. The  corporeal  frame  then  is  but  the  mechanism  for 
making  thoughts  and  affections  apparent^  the  signal-house 
with  which  God  has  covered  us,  the  electric  telegraph  by 
which  quickest  intimation  flies  abroad  of  the  spiritual  force 
within  us.    The  instrument  may  be  broken,  the  dial-plate-  ef- 


IMMORTALITY.  113 

faced  :  and  though  the  hidden  artist  can  make  no  more  signs, 
he  may  be  rich  as  ever  in  the  things  to  be  signified.  Fever 
may  fire  the  pulses  of  the  body :  but  wisdom  and  sanctity 
cannot  sicken,  be  inflamed  and  die.  Neither  consumption  can 
waste,  nor  fracture  mutilate,  nor  gunpowder  scatter  away, 
thought,  and  fidelity,  and  love,  but  only  that  organization 
which  the  spirit  sequestered  therein  renders  so  fair  and 
noble.  To  suppose  such  a  thing  would  be  to  invert  the 
order  of  rank  which  God  has  visibly  established  among  the 
forces  of  our  world,  and  to  give  a  downright  ascendancy  to 
the  brute  energies  of  matter  above  the  vitality  of  the  mind, 
which,  up  to  that  point,  discovers,  subdues  and  rules  them  ; 
to  proclaim  the  triumph  of  the  sword,  the  casualty,  the  pes- 
tilence, over  virtue,  truth  and  faith  ;  to  set  the  cross  above 
the  crucified  ;  to  surrender  the  holy  things  of  this  world  to 
corruption,  and  shroud  its  heaven  with  darkness,  and  turn 
its  moon  into  blood.  Think  only  of  this  earth  as  it  floats 
beneath  the  eye  of  God,  —  a  speck  in  the  blue  infinite,  —  a 
precious  life-balloon  freighted  with  the  family  of  spirits  he 
has  willed  to  come  up  and  travel  in  this  portion  of  his  uni- 
verse. Remember  that  at  this  very  moment,  and  at  each 
tick  of  the  clock,  some  fifty  souls  have  departed  hence,  gone 
with  their  tempestuous  passions,  their  strife,  their  truth, 
their  hopes,  into  space  and  silence  :  not  either  with  the  ap- 
pearance of  forces  spent  and  finished;  for  there  are  children 
fallen  away,  with  expectant  look  on  life,  nothing  doubting 
the  secure  embrace  that  seemed  to  fold  them  round ;  there 
is  youth,  raised  up  to  self-subsistence,  not  without  difficulty 
and  sorrow,  with  the  clear  deep  light  of  thought  and  won- 
der shining  from  within,  quenched  in  sudden  night;  there  is 
many  an  heroic  life,  built  on  no  delusion  of  sense  and  self- 
ishness, but  firm  on  the  adamant  of  faith,  and  deiy'mg 
the  seductions  of  falsehood  and  the  threats  of  fear,  — - 
sunk  from  us  absolutely  away,  and  giving  no  answer  to  our 
recalling  entreaties  and  our  tears.  And  will  you  tell  me 
that  all  this  treasure,  which  is  nothing  less  than  infinite,  is 

8 


114  IMMOETALITY. 

cancelled  and  puffed  away,  like  a  worthless  bubble,  into 
emptiness  ?  Does  God  stand  ahead  of  this  mighty  car  of 
being,  as  it  traverses  the  skies,  only  to  throw  out  the  bound- 
less wealth  of  lives  it  bears,  and  hurl  them  headlong  into 
the  abyss  midway  on  their  voyage  through  eternity  ?  Put 
the  question  in  conjunction  with  any  overwhelming  ca- 
lamity, which  perceptibly  plunges  into  sudden  silence  a 
multitude  of  souls  ;  like  the  dreadful  destruction  j  ust  an- 
nounced from  the  Western  world,  of  a  ship*  freighted  with 
priceless  lives,  with  the  wealth  of  homes,  the  hopes  of  the 
oppressed,  the  lights  of  nations.  Let  any  one  think  over 
the  contents  of  that  fated  ship,  when  it  quitted  the  port  at 
even,  amid  the  cheerful  parting  of  friends,  and  consider  well 
where  they  were  when  the  morning  broke.  There  were 
travellers  from  foreign  lands,  ready  with  pleased  heart  to 
tell  at  home  the  thousand  marvels  they  had  gathered  on 
their  way.  There  was  a  family  of  mourners,  taking  to  their 
household  graves  their  unburied  dead.  And  there  was  one 
at  least  of  rare  truth  and  wisdom,  of  design  than  which 
philanthropy  knows  nothing  greater ;  of  faith  that  all  must 
venerate,  and  love  that  all  must  trust ;  of  persuasive  lips, 
from  which  a  thoughtful  genius  and  the  simplest  heart 
poured  forth  the  true  music  of  humanity.  And  does  any 
one  believe  that  this  freight  of  transcendent  worth,  —  all 
this  sorrow,  and  thought,  and  hope,  and  moral  greatness, 
and  pure  affection,  were  hurnt^  and  went  out  with  flame  and 
cotton-smoke?  Sooner  would  I  believe  that  the  fire  con- 
sumed the  less  everlasting  stars !  Such  a  galaxy  of  spiritual 
light  and  order  and  beauty  is  spread  above  the  elements 
and  their  power,  and  neither  heat  can  scorch  it,  nor  cold 
water  drown.  The  plaintive  wind  that  swept  in  the  morn- 
ing over  the  black  and  heaving  wreck  would  moan  in  the 

*  The  steamboat  Lexington,  which  left  New  York  for  Boston,  13th 
January,  1840,  and  was  burned  that  night  in  Long  Island  Sound,  with 
the  loss  of  all  on  board  except  four.  Dr.  FoUen  was  among  the  number 
that  perished.     The  present  discourse  was  suggested  by  that  event. 


IMMORTALITY.  115 

ear  of  sympathy  with  the  wail  of  a  thousand  survivors  ;  but 
to  the  ear  of  wisdom  and  of  faith,  would  sound  as  the  re- 
turning whisper  and  requiem  of  hope. 

There  appears  to  be  a  caprice  in  the  dispensation  of  death, 
quite  at  variance  with  the  scrupulous  regularity  and  economy 
of  nature  in  less  momentous  affairs ;  and  strongly  indicative 
of  a  hidden  sequel.  The  inferior  departments  of  creation 
are  marked  by  a  frugality  and  seasonal  order,  that  seems  to 
gather  up  the  very  fragments  of  good,  that  nothing  be  lost. 
Scarcely  does  a  moment  elapse  before  the  cast-off  structure 
of  plant  or  animal  is  put  in  requisition  for  some  new  purpose. 
Such  value  seems  to  be  attached  to  the  tree,  that  its  seed 
is  encased  and  protected  with  the  nicest  care,  can  retain  its 
principle  of  vitality  for  thousands  of  years,  and  hold  itself 
ready  to  germinate  whenever  the  suitable  conditions  shall 
be  presented.  The  wild  animals  have  a  certain  term  of  life 
allotted  to  each  species,  which  probably  few  individuals 
much  exceed  or  fail  to  reach.  Everything  else  seems  to 
have  its  well-defined  circuit  and  range  of  functions,  its  season 
of  maturity  and  period  of  fall.  But  when  we  rise  into  the 
only  community  dignified  by  minds,  all  looks  in  comparison 
like  confusion  and  fortuity.  Infancy  and  age,  strength  and 
imbecility,  the  pure  and  the  corrupt  of  heart,  the  full  and 
empty  souled,  drop  indiscriminately  away;  as  if  the  spirits 
of  men  were  the  cruel  sport  of  some  high  and  invisible 
demon-game,  —  kindled  and  extinguished  in  remorseless  and 
capricious  jest.  And  if  such  a  supposition  is  excluded  by 
the  harmony  and  exactitude  which  prevail  in  the  other 
regions  of  creation,  nothing  is  left  but  to  believe  that  we  see 
here  only  the  partial  operation  of  a  higher  law;  that  we 
witness  no  extinction,  but  simply  migrations  of  the  mind  ; 
which  survives  to  fulfil  its  high  offices  elsewhere,  and  find 
perhaps  in  seeming  death  its  true  nativity. 

Then,  too,  let  us  consider  in  what  light  we  should  see  the 
character  of  God,  if  the  fall  of  the  body  is  really  the  fall  of 
the  soul;  remembering  that  he  has  put  into  the  hearts  of 


116  IMMORTALITY. 

most  men,  by  intuition  or  providential  suggestion,  a  divine 
hope  of  something  future.  Turn  once  more  to  the  thought 
of  that  burning  ship,  and  think  of  the  memorial  sounds  that 
went  up  thence  in  the  night  to  God.  When  the  stars  came 
out  the  first  shriek  ascended ;  two  hours  past  midnight  the 
last  was  drowned.  And  in  the  interval  did  a  hundred  and 
seventy  mortals  shiver  and  cry  to  him  from  frost  and  flame, 
with  faith  and  prayers  of  various  and  unspeakable  contents, 
—  the  cold  heavens  looking  serenely  down,  and  gliding  on 
as  if  they  enclosed  nothing  but  peace.  And  what  was  the 
answer  of  the  hearer  of  prayer  to  that  agony  of  despair? 
Did  he  say,  as  no  man  or  angel  would  have  done,  "  Down, 
begone  for  ever  into  darkness ! "  And  did  he  so  answer, 
with  the  full  knowledge  of  his  omniscience,  that  many  a 
survivor  would  return  this  awful  frown  with  the  sweetest 
and  most  unconscious  smile  of  resignation,  hiding  her  mourn- 
ing head  with  him  as  in  the  bosom  of  a  Father  ?  Or,  put 
yourselves  back  into  the  presence  of  an  earlier  and  sublimer 
tragedy ;  remember  the  scene  on  Calvary,  with  the  words 
of  assured  hope  and  meek  supplication  that  passed  there  from 
holiest  lips  to  God.  When  his  own  Christ  gave  the  tranquil 
assurance,  "This  day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  Paradise," 
did  He  who  inspired  that  promise,  and  alone  could  fulfil, 
overhear  it  with  secret  rejection  and  denial?  When  the 
fainting  utterance  exclaimed  with  most  loving  meaning,  "It 
is  finished,"  did  the  ever-present  Father  put  on  that  cry  a 
dreadful  interpretation,  "  and  make  an  end "  of  all  things 
to  him  —  that  Son  of  God?  And  when  he  breathed  forth 
those  last  words,  "Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commit  my 
spirit,"  did  the  All-merciful  refuse  the  trust,  and  reply  to 
that  pure  faith,  "  Take  away  thy  cry,  for  mine  eye  shall  not 
spare,  neither  will  I  hear  with  mine  ear  "  ?  Did  he  do  thus 
to  the  Galilean,  knowing  that,  night  and  morning,  friends 
and  followers  and  disciples  for  ages  would  converse  with 
him  about  this  departed  one,  with  a  trustful  hope  which  he 
had  thus  turned  into  a  lie  ?     Were  this  possible,  God  were 


IMMORTALITY.  117 

no  "Father  of  Spirits,"  to  waste  and  mock  them  thus;  and 
might  no  less  fitly  be  termed  the  Destroyer  than  the  Creator ; 
and  every  good  man  might  feel  an  infinite  pity  for  his  kind, 
diviner  far  than  the  very  providence  of  heaven. 

Thus,  if  the  celestial  hope  be  a  delusion,  we  plainly  see 
loho  are  the  mistaken.  Not  the  mean  and  grovelling  souls, 
who  never  reached  to  so  great  a  thought ;  not  the  drowsy 
and  easy  natures,  who  are  content  with  the  sleep  of  sense 
through  life,  and  the  sleep  of  darkness  ever  after ;  not  the 
selfish  and  pinched  of  conscience,  of  small  thought  and 
smaller  love  ;  no,  these  in  such  case  are  right,  and  the  uni- 
verse is  on  their  miserable  scale.  The  deceived  are  the 
great  and  holy,  whom  all  men,  aye,  these  very  insignificants 
themselves,  revere ;  the  men  who  have  lived  for  something 
better  than  their  happiness,  and  spent  themselves  in  the  race, 
or  fallen  at  the  altar  of  human  good  ;  — Paul,  with  his  mighty 
and  conquering  courage;  yes,  Christ  himself,  who  vainly 
sobbed  his  spirit  to  rest  on  his  Father's  imaginary  love,  and 
without  result  commended  his  soul  to  the  Being  whom  he 
fancied  himself  to  reveal.  The  self-sacrifice  of  Calvary  was 
but  a  tragic  and  barren  mistake ;  for  Heaven  disowns  the 
godlike  prophet  of  Nazareth,  and  takes  part  with  those  who 
scoffed  at  him  and  would  have  him  die ;  and  is  insensible 
to  the  divine  fitness  which  even  men  have  felt,  when  they 
either  recorded  the  supposed  fact,  or  invented  the  beautiful 
fiction,  of  Christ's  ascension.  Whom  are  we  to  revere,  and 
what  can  we  believe,  if  the  inspirations  of  the  highest  of 
created  natures  are  but  cunningly-devised  fables  ? 

But  it  is  not  so  :  and  no  one  who  has  found  true  guidance 
of  heart  from  these  noblest  sons  of  Heaven,  will  fear  to  stake 
his  futurity,  and  the  immortal  life  of  his  departed  friends, 
on  their  vaticinations.  These,  of  all  things  granted  to  our 
ignorance,  are  assuredly  most  like  the  hidden  realities  of 
God ;  which  may  be  greater,  but  will  not  be  less,  than 
prophets  and- seers  have  foretold,  and  even  our  own  souls, 
when  gifted  with  highest  and  clearest  vision,  discern  as  truths 


118  IMMORTALITY. 

not  doubtful  or  far  off.  In  this  hope  let  us  trust,  and  be  true 
to  the  toils  of  life  which  it  ennobles  and  cheers.  Whoever 
"fights  the  good  fight"  shall  surely  "keep  the  faith:"  for 
God  reveals  the  secret  of  his  future  will  to  those  who  worthily 
do  it  in  the  present.  This  is  our  proper  care.  Putting  our- 
selves into  his  hands,  and  living  in  submissive  harmony  with 
his  everlasting  laws,  let  us  "finish  our  course;"  and  leave  it 
to  him  to  take  us,  when  he  will,  where  our  forerunners  are, 
and  the  unf  oldings  of  his  ways  are  seen  with  open  eye. 


XIII. 
THE    COMMUNION    OF    SAINTS. 


EPHESIAN3   II.  19. 
FELLOW-CITIZENS  WITH  THE   SAINTS,    AND   OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  OP  GOD. 

Society  becomes  possible  only  through  religion.  Men 
might  be  gregarious  without  it,  but  not  social.  Instinct, 
which  unites  them  in  detail,  prevents  their  wider  combina- 
tion. Intellect  affords  light  to  show  the  elements  of  union, 
but  no  heat  to  give  them  crystalline  form.  Self-will  is  pre- 
vailingly a  repulsive  power,  and  often  disintegrates  the  most 
solid  of  human  masses.  Even  the  moral  sentiment,  so  far 
as  it  recognizes  man  as  supreme,  and  simply  tries  to  make  a 
prudent  adjustment  of  his  vehement  forces,  can  produce 
among  a  multitude  only  an  unstable  equilibrium,  liable 
every  moment  to  be  subverted  by  the  ever-shifting  gravita- 
tion of  the  passions.  Some  sense  of  a  divine  presence,  some 
consciousness  of  a  higher  law,  some  pressure  of  a  solemn 
necessity,  will  be  found  to  have  preceded  the  organization 
of  every  human  community,  and  to  have  gone  out  and  per- 
ished before  its  death.  There  is  great  significance  in  the 
tradition  which,  in  every  people  of  apparently  aboriginal 
civilization,  attributes  an  inspired  character  to  their  first 
lawgiver,  and  pronounces  their  subjection  to  moral  order  a 
task  which  only  the  force  of  Heaven  could  achieve.  They 
only  whose  voice  could  reach  the  sleeping  tones  of  worship 
in  the  hearts  of  men,  and  awaken  some  deep  faith  and  alle- 
giance, could  so  deal  with  their  wild  nature,  as  to  chain  the 
savage  passions  and  set  free  the  nobler  will.  And  although, 
in  old  societies,  the  innumerable  fibres  of  goyernment,  of 


1.20  THE   COMMUNION   OF   SAINTS. 

usage,  of  established  ideas,  supply  a  thousand  secondary 
bonds,  which  seem  to  make  the  mighty  growth  secure  as  the 
forest  oak,  yet  all  this  system  of  roots  has,  I  believe,  its 
secret  nutriment  from  the  devout  elements  of  a  nation's 
mind  :  and  if  these  should  dry  up  in  any  Arctic  chill  of 
doubt,  or  be  poisoned  by  any  Epicurean  rot  of  indulgence, 
it  would  silently  decay  within  the  soil,  and  leave  the  fairest 
tree  of  history,  first  with  a  sickening  foliage,  and  soon  with 
a  perished  life.  The  most  compact  and  gigantic  machinery 
of  society,  —  as  experience  shows,  —  falls  to  pieces,  wher- 
ever religious  and  moral  scepticism,  by  paralyzing  faith  and 
heroism  and  hope,  has  cut  off  the  supply  of  spiritual  power. 
Rome,  at  the  commencement  of  our  era,  had  reached  the 
utmost  point  of  material  force  and  visible  magnificence  :  her 
organization  held  with  an  iron  grasp  the  continents  of 
Europe  and  the  East ;  her  military  chain  spread  with  un- 
broken links  from  Lebanon  to  Gaul,  and  from  the  Cavspian 
to  the  J^thiopic  Nile ;  her  wealth  and  arts  had  called  into 
being  ten  thousand  cities,  —  no  mean  imitations  of  her  own 
greatness  ;  her  institutions  had  diffused  a  universal  repose, 
and  the  functions  of  government  were  exercised  with  a 
rapidity  and  precision  never  surpassed.  What  brought  a 
power  thus  mighty,  —  a  power  that  called  itself  "  eternal," 
—  to  its  dissolution  ?  Shall  we  be  content  with  a  figure  of 
speech,  and  say  that  it  broke  asunder  from  its  excessive 
mass?  Apart  from  spiritual  decline  and  causes  of  moral 
disunion,  I  know  of  nothing  to  prevent  a  uniform  civilization 
from  reaching  the  most  enormous  bulk.  Shall  we  refer 
rather  to  external  dangers  ;  and  calling  to  mind  the  tempest 
of  barbarians  that  "  roared  around  the  gates  of  the  empire," 
say  that  it  perished  like  a  mammoth,  in  a  drift  of  northern 
snows?  Yet  with  far  less  imposing  resources,  she  had 
stood  up  and  lived  through  fiercer  storms.  No  ;  the  stroke 
was  not  of  war,  but  of  paralysis.  The  heart  of  religion  had 
ceased  to  beat :  the  high  faith,  the  stern  disinterestedness, 
the  sacred  honor  of  the  republic,  had  faded  into  tradition : 


THE   COMMUNION   OF   SAINTS.  121 

the  sanctities  of  life  were  disbelieved  even  in  the  nursery : 
no  binding  sentiment  restrained  the  greediness  of  appetite 
and  the  licentiousness  of  self-will :  the  very  passions  with 
whose  submission  alone  society  can  begin,  broke  loose  again, — 
attended  by  a  brood  of  artificial  and  parasitic  vices  that  spread 
the  dissolute  confusion.  Yet  it  was  not  that  the  conditions 
of  social  union  had  become  impossible.  For  observe ;  in 
the  midst  of  this  corruption,  in  the  invisible  recesses  of 
profligate  cities,  a  small  point  of  fresh  young  life  is  already 
to  be  discerned,  like  the  bud  of  some  fair  growth  thrusting 
up  its  head  among  the  putrefying  leaves.  A  few  poor 
slaves  and  outcast  Hebrews  have  heard  the  divinest  whisper 
borne  to  them  from  Palestine ;  have  discovered  by  it  that  in- 
ner region  of  love  and  hope  and  trust,  in  which  all  fraternity 
of  heart  begins  ;  and  are  banded  together  with  a  spirit  that 
soon  speaks  out  and  prophesies  in  martyrdom.  While 
Rome  displayed  its  greatness  even  in  death,  and  struggled 
with  the  convulsions  of  a  giant,  the  infant  faith  remained 
unharmed ;  healing  as  it  could  the  wounds  which  the  mad 
world  suffered  ;  and  like  a  fair  immortal  child,  winning  a 
blessed  way  by  entrancing  the  souls  of  men  with  the  forgot- 
ten vision  of  a  divine  simplicity  and  truth.  Christianity  has 
ever  since  been  the  bond  of  European  civilization:  and  should 
its  spirit  ever  perish  hence,  this  glorious  family  of  nations 
will  be  dissolved. 

Let  us  look,  with  more  detail,  into  some  of  the  natural 
groups  which  a  genuine  faith  can  form  ;  and  we  shall  find 
nothing  incredible  in  its  strong  combining  power. 

Worship  exhibits  its  uniting  principle  under  the  simplest 
form,  in  the  sympathies  it  diffuses  among  the  members  of 
the  same  religious  assembly. 

It  is  universally  felt  that  devotion  must  sometimes  quit 
the  solitude  of  the  cell,  forget  its  mere  individual  wants,  and 
speak  as  from  humanity's  great  heart  to  God.  The  scruples 
of  the  few  who  have  objected  to  social  piety  have  met  with 
no  response ;  they  are  justly  regarded  as  the  eccentricities 


122  THE   COMMUNION   OF   SAINTS. 

of  a  stiff  and  petty  rationalism,  that  will  not  stir  without  a 
literal  precept,  and  trusts  any  logical  finger-post  (possibly 
set  the  wrong  way  by  the  humor  of  some  sophistry),  rather 
than  the  cardinal  guidance  of  those  high  affections  which 
are  in  truth  the  imperishable  lights  of  heaven.  To  this 
house  we  come,  my  friends,  drawn  not  by  arbitrary  command 
which  we  fear  to  disobey ;  not  by  self-interest,  temporal  or 
spiritual,  which  we  deem  it  prudent  to  consult ;  not,  I  trust, 
from  dead  conventionalism,  that  brings  the  body  and  leaves 
the  soul;  but  by  a  common  quest  of  some  holy  spirit  to 
penetrate  and  purify  our  life ;  by  a  common  desire  to  quit 
its  hot  and  level  dust,  and  from  its  upland  slopes  of  contem- 
plation inhale  the  serenity  of  God ;  by  the  secret  sadness  of 
sin,  that  can  delay  its  confessions  and  bear  its  earthliness  no 
more ;  by  the  deep  though  dim  consciousness,  that  the  pass- 
ing weeks  do  not  leave  us  where  they  find  us,  but  plant  us 
within  nearer  distance,  and  give  us  a  more  intimate  view,  of 
that  fathomless  eternity,  wherein  so  many  dear  and  mortal 
things  have  dropped  from  our  imploring  eyes.  It  is  no  won- 
der that  in  meditations  solemn  as  these  we  love  and  seek 
each  other's  sympathy.  It  is  easy,  no  doubt,  to  journey 
alone  in  the  broad  sunshine  and  on  the  beaten  highways  of 
our  lot:  but  over  the  midnight  plain,  and  beneath  the  still 
immensity  of  darkness,  the  traveller  seeks  some  fellowship 
for  his  wanderings.  And  what  is  religion  but  the  midnight 
hemisphere  of  life,  whose  vault  is  filled  with  the  silence  of 
God,  and  whose  everlasting  stars,  if  giving  no  clear  light, 
yet  fill  the  soul  with  dreams  of  immeasurable  glory  ?  It 
will  be  an  awful  thing  to  each  of  us  to  be  alone,  when  he 
takes  the  passage  from  the  mortal  to  the  immortal,  and  is 
borne  along,  —  with  unknown  time  for  expectant  thought, 
—  through  the  space  that  severs  earth  from  heaven:  and 
till  then,  at  least,  we  will  not  part,  but  speak  with  the  com- 
mon voice  of  supplicating  trust  of  that  which  awaits  us  all. 
There  is  however  no  necessary  fellowship,  as  of  saints,  in 
the  mere  assembling  of  ourselves  together ;  but  only  in  the 


THE  COMMUNION  OF   SAINTS.  123 

true  and  simple  spirit  of  worship.  All  these  occasions  of 
devotion  assume  that  we  have  already  some  affections  to 
express ;  that  we  have  discernment  of  the  divine  relations 
of  our  existence  ;  that  we  have  souls  seeking  to  cry  out  in 
prayer,  and  waiting  to  lie  down  before  God  in  tears.  The 
services  of  this  place  are  quite  mistaken  by  those  who  look 
on  them  as  the  means  of  obtaining  a  religion  non-existent 
yet ;  who  see  in  them  only  the  instruments  of  self-discipline  ; 
who  perform  here  no  personal  act  of  the  mind,  but  passively 
wait  such  operation  as  may  befall  them ;  or  who  assume,  in 
their  mental  offerings,  not  the  desires  and  emotions  which 
they  really  experience,  but  those  instead  which  they  only 
ought  to  feel  and  hope  to  realize  at  last  by  persevering  false 
profession.  The  lips  are  to  follow  the  heart  and  cannot  lead 
it :  and  we  are  here,  not  to  make  use  of  God  for  the  sake  of 
our  devotion,  but  to  pour  forth  devotion  for  the  sake  of  God. 
Were  every  one  in  a  Christian  assembly  to  be  all  the  while 
intent  on  his  own  improvement,  to  be  subordinating  every 
thing  to  his  own  case,  and  with  morbid  scrupulosity  to  be 
prescribing  throughout  for  his  own  temper,  there  would  be 
simply  no  proper  worship  at  all :  there  would  be  not  the 
least  union  of  hearts  :  each  would  sit  insulated  with  his  own 
separate  self,  and  would  be  more  naturally  placed  in  a  soli- 
tary cell,  than  amid  an  unsocial  multitude  :  there  would  be 
none  of  that  sublime  ascent  of  soul,  that  common  flight  of 
love,  in  which  all  individuality  is  lost,  all  personal  regards 
absorbed,  and  the  vision  of  Heaven  and  God  melts  the 
many  minds  and  many  voices  of  the  church  in  one.  Oh  how, 
within  that  Presence  whose  intimacy  enfolds  us  here,  can 
we  ever  stay  outside  the  spirit  of  worship,  and  perform  mere 
conscientious  gestures  of  the  mind,  and  act  a  part  even  with 
ourselves  alone  as  its  spectator  ?  Will  nothing  short  of  the 
death-plunge  into  eternity  steep  us  in  its  mystery,  and  strip 
off  the  spirit-wrappings  that  cover  us  from  the  communion 
of  God  ?  We  stand  here,  as  in  heaven's  last  resort  for  pen- 
etrating to   the  earnest  centre  of   our  nature :  and  if  the 


124  THE   COMMUNION   OF   SAINTS. 

fountain  of  the  secret  life  is  still  encased  and  does  not  flow, 
no  common  shock  can  break  the  icy  crust  that  binds  it. 
Think  only,  in  simplest  and  briefest  review,  of  the  consider- 
ations that  pass  before  us  at  our  meeting  here.  At  this  hour 
of  prayer,  when  we  stand  within  the  reality  of  God,  and  face 
to  face  behold  his  awfulness,  and  tell  how  we  are  glad  at  all 
his  graciousness ;  when  we  hear  the  sweet  voice  of  Christ,  — 
mellowed  and  deepened  as  it  floats  over  eighteen  centuries 
of  meaning,  —  saying  to  us,  as  we  bend  beneath  the  weight 
of  life,  "Come  unto  me,  ye  heavy-laden;"  when  we  own 
the  shameful  conquests  of  temptation,  and  repent  of  the 
abandoned  strife,  and  rebuild  the  fallen  purpose ;  when 
there  is  set  before  us  the  divine  dignity  of  existence,  and 
the  majesty  of  our  free-will,  and  the  high  trust  of  duty,  and 
the  tranquil  power  of  faith  ;  when  we  speak  together  of  our 
dead,  and  memory  beholds  their  solemn  forms  so  silent  in 
the  shadows  of  the  past ;  when  we  remember  how,  even 
while  we  think  it,  some  souls  are  surely  passing  away,  and 
soon  we  too  shall  lay  the  burthen  down  and  go  ;  when,  as 
from  the  brink  of  being,  we  look  into  futurity,  and  the  true 
voice  of  judgment  falls  upon  the  ear,  startling  as  the  trump 
of  conscience  or  healing  as  the  symphonies  of  the  blest; 
when  all  periods  of  life  assemble  before  the  Everlasting  that 
hath  no  age,  and  the  light  look  of  the  child,  and  the  steady 
features  of  manhood,  and  the  shaken  head  of  age,  denote 
their  several  wants  and  prayers ;  when  the  tempted  comes 
to  seek  new  strength,  and  the  mourner  sees  his  sorrows  from 
a  higher  point,  and  the  anxious  is  beguiled  into  a  loving  reli- 
ance, and  the  contrite  weeps  his  sin  and  distrusts  his  tears ; 
—  at  such  an  hour,  if  the  disguises  fall  not  from  our  hearts, 
and  leave  us  a  disembodied  fraternity  of  souls  sending  the 
chorus  of  common  want  to  Heaven,  then  indeed  are  we 
slaves  to  the  earthly  life,  without  that  enfranchisement  of 
spirit,  that  makes  possible  a  "fellowship  of  saints,"  and 
exalts  us  to  "  the  household  of  God." 

Where  however  a  pure  devotion  really  exists,  the  fellow- 


THE   COMMUNION   OF   SAINTS.  125 

ship  it  produces  spreads  far  beyond  the  separate  circle  of 
each  Christian  assembly.  A  single  company  of  pious  men, 
gathered  together  from  among  a  race  that  could  not  wor- 
ship, would  indeed  draw  close  their  mutual  sympathies  at 
the  expense  of  alienation  from  their  kind.  But  it  is  not  so. 
"We  are  brought  to  stand  side  by  side  within  this  place  by 
no  exclusive  propensity,  no  whimsical  peculiarity  of  the  few  : 
the  impulse  is  of  nature,  not  of  fancy  ;  and  we  know  this  at 
the  moment  we  obey  it.  We  meet,  with  the  reraembra:ice 
that  we  are  in  the  midst  of  brethren  who  meet  too  :  and 
every  religious  society,  though  physically  shut  in  by  its 
sanctuary  walls,  kneels  in  secret  consciousness  of  the  pres- 
ence of  kindred  fraternities  without  number,  subdued  by 
the  same  sanctities,  and  pressing  to  the  same  end,  not  by 
human  agreement,  but  a  divine  consent.  As  every  indi- 
vidual in  a  place  of  prayer,  overhearing  the  like  spontaneous 
tones  from  many  souls  around  him,  cannot  but  deepen  the 
fervor  of  his  own ;  so  each  assembly,  feeling  that  its  neigh- 
borhood is  studded  over  with  similar  groups  prostrate  in 
adoration  like  itself,  sends  to  Heaven  a  more  genial  and 
huraaner  cry ;  and  every  neighborhood,  mustering  to  prayer, 
thinks  of  the  busy  peals  from  clustered  churches  that  cross 
and  crowd  one  another  in  each  distant  town,  or  the  single 
quiet  chime  in  every  village  of  the  land,  and  finds  in  the 
thought  a  gladder  and  a  kindlier  praise ;  and  every  land, 
aware  that  it  is  but  one  of  a  company  of  nations',  federally 
bound  of  God  by  irrepressible  aspirings  to  himself,  chants 
its  mighty  note  with  deeper  meaning,  as  part  of  a  universal 
symphony  heard  in  its  unity  in  Heaven  alone.  Surely  it  is 
a  glorious  thing  to  call  up,  while  we  worship  here,  the  wide 
image  of  Christendom  this  day.  Turn  your  thoughts  away 
from  the  noisy  discord  of  sects ;  believe  nothing  of  their 
mutual  slanders ;  forgive  the  occasional  weakness  of  super- 
stition ;  and  be  not  angry  with  the  narrow  vision  of  earnest 
conviction  that  can  see  nothing  but  its  own  truth  :  and  far 
beneath  the  superficial  divisions  created  by  the  intellect, 


126  THE   COMMUNION   OF   SAINTS. 

Bee  in  the  Sabbath  spectacle  of  the  world  evidence  of  a 
deep  and  wide-spread  union  of  hearts.  Could  we  be  lifted 
up  above  this  sphere,  and  look  down  as  it  rolls  beneath  this 
day's  sun,  and  catch  its  murmurs  as  they  rise,  should  we  not 
behold  land  after  land  turned  into  a  Christian  shrine  ?  The 
dawn,  that  summons  mortals  from  their  sleep,  bears  them 
to-day  a  new  and  sacred  message  ;  the  sunbeam  touches  the 
gates  of  ten  thousand  temples,  and  they  burst  open  to 
receive  the  record  of  countless  aspirations  ;  the  morning 
shoots  across  the  desert  atmosphere  of  a  weary  world, 
strikes  on  the  stony  form  of  giant  humanity,  and  brings  out 
tones  of  celestial  music.  In  how  many  tongues,  by  what 
various  voices,  with  what  measureless  intensity  of  love,  is 
the  name  of  Christ  breathed  forth  to-day !  What  cries  of 
penitence,  what  accents  of  trust,  what  plaints  of  earnest 
desire,  pass  away  to  God !  What  an  awful  array  of  faces 
that  gaze  forth  into  immortality  with  various  looks  of  terror 
or  of  love !  The  vows  and  prayers  whose  millions  crowd 
the  gates  of  mercy  no  recording  angel  could  tell,  but  only 
the  infinite  memory  of  God.  Of  how  glorious  a  church, 
then,  are  we  members  when  we  kneel  within  this  place  !  in 
how  solemn  an  act  do  we  take  our  part !  with  how  sublime 
a  brotherhood  do  we  own  our  fellowship  ! 

But  our  worship  here  brings  us  into  yet  nobler  con- 
nections. It  unites  us  by  a  chain  of  closest  sympathy 
with  past  generations.  In  our  helps  to  faith  and  devotion 
in  this  place,  we  avail  ourselves  of  the  thought  and  piety 
of  many  extinct  ages.  We  reverently  read  those  ancient 
scriptures,  which  have  gathered  around  them  the  trust,  and 
procured  the  heart-felt  repose,  of  so  many  tribes  and  peri- 
ods, since  prophets  and  apostles  first  gave  them  forth.  ^  We 
sing  the  hymns  which  a  goodly  company  of  pious  men  have 
left  as  the  record  of  their  communion  with  Heaven.  And 
it  is  impossible  to  look  at  the  consecrated  names  of  those 
"  sweet  singers  "  of  Christendom,  without  feeling  ennobled 
by  their  communion,  and  even  astonished  at  our  sympathy 


THE   COMMUNION  OF   SAINTS.  127 

with  them.  Do  not  we,  the  living,  take  up,  in  adoration 
and  prayer,  the  thoughts  of  the  dead,  and  feel  them  divinely- 
true  ?  Do  they  not  come  forth,  as  if  fresh  coined  from  oui 
own  hearts  ?  Indeed,  could  we  ourselves  so  faithfully  utter 
the  consciousness  of  our  inner  being,  or  shape  so  interpret- 
ing a  voice  for  our  secret  life  ?  What  an  impressive  testi- 
mony this  to  the  sameness  of  our  nature  through  every  age, 
and  the  immortal  perseverance  of  its  holier  affections  !  The 
language  of  their  confessions,  their  struggles,  their  desires, 
speaks  our  own  :  the  light  that  gladdened  them,  shines  now 
upon  our  hearts :  and  the  mists  they  could  not  penetrate, 
brood  now  upon  our  path.  There  is  the  choice  minstrel  of 
Israel,  true  alike  to  the  spirit  of  mourning  or  of  joy ;  there 
are  the  venerable  fathers  of  the  ancient  church,  whose  ves- 
pers, chanted  centuries  ago,  will  suit  this  night  as  well ; 
there  is  the  adamantine  yet  genial  Luther,  telling,  with  the 
severity  of  an  eye-witness,  the  awfulness  of  judgment ; 
there  is  the  noble  Milton,  breathing  his  sweet  and  rugged 
music  out  of  darkness ;  there  is  the  afflicted  Cowper,  send- 
ing out  the  tenderest  strains  from  his  benighted  spirit : 
with  an  attendant  multitude  of  the  faithful,  —  the  confessor, 
the  exile,  the  missionary,  —  a  chorus  of  sublime  voices,  with 
which  it  is  a  sacred  privilege  to  be  in  harmony.  And  these 
are  not  merely  the  'accents  of  the  past,  but  the  anthem  of 
the  sainted  dead,  —  the  strains  of  immortals  that  look  back 
upon  their  toils,  and  behold  us  singing  their  songs  of  sad- 
ness here,  while  they  have  already  learned  the  melodies  of 
everlasting  joy.  Blessed  communion  of  earth  with  Heaven ! 
making  us  truly  one  family,  below,  above  ;  and  rendering  us 
fellow-citizens  with  the  saints,  and  of  the  very  household 
of  God ! 

And  soon  we  too  shall  drop  the  note  of  earthly  aspira- 
tion, and  join  that  upper  anthem  of  diviner  love.  The 
houi*  Cometh,  when  we  shall  cease  the  mournful  cry  with 
which  earth  must  ever  pray  to  Heaven,  and  grief  ask  pity 
to  its  tears,  and  the  tempted  call  for  help  in  the  crisis  of 


128  THE   COMMUNION   OF   SAINTS. 

danger,  and  the  laboring  will  implore  a  freshened  strength. 
Exiles  as  yet  from  the  spirit  of  unanxious  joy,  we  catch  but 
the  echoes  of  that  heavenly  peace,  and  yield  response  but 
faint  and  low.  Yet  even  now  the  free  heart  of  the  happy 
and  triumphant  shall  be  ours,  in  proportion  as  we  are  true 
to  the  condition  of  faithful  service^  which  alone  can  make 
us  one  with  them.  The  communion  of  saints  brings  to  us 
their  conflict  first,  their  blessings  afterwards ;  those  who 
will  not  with  much  patience  strive  with  the  evil,  can  have 
no  dear  fellowship  with  the  good;  we  must  weep  their 
tears,  ere  we  can  win  their  peace.  This  sorrowful  condition 
once  accepted,  the  sympathies  of  Heaven  are  not  slow  to  arise 
within  the  soul :  it  is  the  tension  of  sacred  toil,  that  on  the 
touch  of  every  breath  of  life  brings  music  from  the  chords 
of  love.  And  then  the  tone  that  here  sinks  in  the  silence  of 
death,  shall  there  swell  into  an  immortal's  fuller  praise.  We 
shall  leave  it  to  others  to  take  up  the  supplicating  strain ; 
shall  join  the  emancipated  brotherhood  of  the  departed  ; 
and  in  our  turn  look  down  on  the  outstretched  hands  of 
our  children,  waiting  our  welcome  and  embrace.  Oh  may 
the  Great  Father,  in  his  own  fit  time,  unite  in  one  the 
parted  family  of  Heaven  and  earth  I 


XIV. 
CHRIST'S    TREATMENT    OF  GUILT. 


Luke  v.  8. 
depart  from  me;  for  i  am  a  sinful  man,  o  lord  i 

When  Simeon,  on  the  verge  of  life,  uttered  his  parting 
hymn  within  the  temple,  he  told  Mary,  with  the  infant 
Jesus  in  his  arms,  that,  by  that  child,  "  the  thoughts  of 
many  hearts  should  be  revealed."  Never  was  prophecy 
more  true ;  nor  ever  perhaps  the  mission  of  our  religion 
more  faithfully  defined.  For  wherever  it  has  spread,  it 
has  operated  like  a  new  and  diviner  conscience  to  the 
world ;  imparting  to  the  human  mind  a  profounder  insight 
into  itself ;  opening  to  its  consciousness  fresh  powers  and 
better  aspirations;  and  penetrating  it  with  a  sense  of  im- 
perfection, a  concern  for  the  moral  frailties  of  the  will, 
characteristic  of  no  earlier  age.  The  spirit  of  religious 
penitence,  the  solemn  confession  of  unfaithfulness,  the 
prayer  for  mercy,  are  the  growth  of  our  nature  trained  in 
the  school  of  Christ.  The  pure  image  of  his  mind,  as  it 
has  passed  from  land  to  land,  has  taught  men  more  of  their 
own  hearts  than  all  the  ancient  aphorisms  of  self-knowledge  : 
has  inspired  more  sadness  at  the  evil,  more  noble  hope  for 
the  good  that  is  hidden  there  ;  and  has  placed  within  reach 
of  even  the  ignorant,  the  neglected,  and  the  young,  severer 
principles  of  self-scrutiny  than  philosophy  had  ever  attained. 
The  radiance  of  so  great  a  sanctity  has  deepened  the  shades 
of  conscious  sin.  The  savage  convert,  who  before  knew 
nothing  more  sacred  than  revenge  and  war,  is  brought  to 

9 


130  Christ's  treatment  of  guilt. 

Jesus,  and,  as  he  listens  to  that  voice,  feels  the  stain  of  blood 
growing  distinct  upon  his  soul.  The  voluptuary,  never  be- 
fore disturbed  from  his  self-indulgence,  comes  within  the 
atmosphere  of  Christ's  spirit ;  and  it  is  as  if  a  gale  of 
heaven  fanned  his  fevered  brow,  and  convinced  him  that 
he  is  not  in  health.  The  ambitious  priest,  revolving  plans 
for  using  men's  passions  as  tools  of  his  aggrandizement, 
starts  to  find  himself  the  disciple  of  one  who,  when  the 
people  would  have  made  him  king,  fled  direct  to  solitude 
and  prayer.  The  froward  child  blushes  to  think  how  little 
there  is  in  him  of  the  infant  meekness  which  Jesus  praised ; 
and  feels  that,  had  he  been  there,  he  must  have  missed  the 
benediction,  or,  more  bitter  still,  have  wept  to  know  it  mis- 
applied. Nay,  so  deep  and  solemn  did  the  sense  of  guilt 
become  under  the  influence  of  Christian  thoughts,  that  at 
length  the  overburdened  heart  of  fervent  times  could  en- 
dure the  weight  no  longer  :  the  Confessional  arose,  to 
relieve  it  and  restore  a  periodic  peace ;  and  it  became  the 
chief  object  of  the  widest  sacerdotal  order  which  the  world 
has  ever  seen,  to  soothe  the  sobs,  and  listen  to  the  whispered 
record,  of  human  penitence.  Cities  too,  as  if  conscious 
of  their  corruption,  bid  the  silent  minster  rise  amid  their 
streets,  where,  instead  of  the  short  daily  or  Sabbath  service, 
unceasing,  eternal  orisons  might  be  said  for  sin ;  where  the 
door  might  open  to  the  touch  all  day,  and  the  lamp  be  seen 
beneath  the  vault  by  night,  and  the  passer-by,  caught  by 
the  low  chant,  might  be  tempted  to  interrupt  the  chase  of 
vanity  without,  for  the  peace  of  prayer  within.  And  so,  in 
every  ancient  village  church  of  Europe,  there  is  a  corner 
that  has  been  moistened  with  the  burning  tears  of  many 
generations,  and  witness  to  the  confessions  and  griefs  that 
prove  the  children's  conscience  and  affections  to  be  such  as 
their  fathers'  were  :  and  the  cathedral  aisle,  emblem  of  the 
mighty  heart  of  Christendom,  has  for  centuries  been  swelled 
with  the  plaint  of  a  penitential  music,  shedding  its  sighs 
aloft   into  the  spire,  as  if  to  reach  and  kiss  the  feet  of  God. 


Christ's  treatment  of  guilt.  131 

In  private  dwellings,  too,  from  the  hearts  of  parents  and  of 
children,  every  morning  and  evening  for  ages  past  has  seen 
many  sad  and  lowly  prayers  ascend.  Everywhere  the 
Christian  mind  proclaims  its  need  of  mercy,  and  bends  be- 
neath the  oppression  of  its  guilt ;  and  since  Jesus  began  to 
"  reveal  the  thoughts  of  many  hearts,"  Christendom,  with 
clasped  hands,  has  fallen  at  his  feet  and  cried,  "  We  are  sin- 
ful men,  O  Lord !  " 

In  nurturing  this  sentiment,  in  producing  this  solemn 
estimate  of  moral  evil  and  quick  perception  of  its  exist- 
ence, the  religion  of  Christ  does  but  perpetuate  the  influ- 
ence of  his  personal  ministry,  and  give  prominence,  on  the 
theatre  of  the  world,  to  the  feature  which  singularly  distin- 
guished his  life,  viz.  his  treatment  of  the  guilty.  It  is  as 
if  he  dwelt  among  us  still,  and  we  saw  him  vexed  and 
saddened  by  our  evil  passions,  and  travelled  with  him  on 
the  way,  and  felt  his  eye  of  gentleness  and  purity  upon  our 
homes,  and  he  told  us  that  "  we  know  not  what  spirit  we 
are  of,"  and  by  these  veiy  words  caused  us  to  know  it 
instantly.  Nor  can  we  obtain  any  juster  and  deeper  im- 
pressions of  the  temptations  of  life,  and  the  tendencies  of 
all  wrong  desires,  than  by  seizing  that  view  of  moral  evil 
which  dictated  the  mercies  and  the  severities  of  his  lips 
and  life. 

He  lived  amid  dark  passions  and  in  evil  days.  Profli- 
gates and  outcasts  were  near  him  :  the  ambitious  and 
ignorant  were  his  disciples  :  hypocrites  conspired  against 
him  ;  and  treachery  was  ready  to  be  their  tool.  He  had  to 
encounter  malignant  designs  directed  against  himself,  and 
selfish  arts  of  delusion  practised  on  the  people ;  to  deal  at 
one  time  with  the  despised  but  affectionate  penitent ;  at 
another,  with  recently-detected  shame ;  and  again,  with 
artifice  and  insincere  pretension  hardened  into  system,  and 
administered  by  established  authority.  And  in  all  is  visible 
the  same  spirit  of  blended  sanctity  and  humanity,  adapting 
itself,  with  versatile  power,  to  every  emergency. 


132  Christ's  treatment  of  guilt. 

The  guilty  passions  of  his  countrymen  continually  ap- 
proached himself.  They  haunted  his  whole  ministry,  and 
hated  him  as  soon  as  disciples  began  to  love.  They  mixed 
with  the  multitudes  whom  he  taught  upon  the  hills ;  and  he 
isaw  their  evil  eye  peering  on  him  and  watching  his  words 
from  amid  the  throngs  that  flocked  round  him  in  the  tem- 
ple. But  they  never  emban-assed  the  flow  of  his  dignified 
utterance,  or  fluttered  his  spirit  with  a  moment's  resentment. 
On  occasion  of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  —  that  annual  ju- 
bilee of  Jerusalem's  heart,  when  the  trees  were  robbed  of 
their  branches  to  turn  the  streets  into  an  olive-ground,  and 
make  the  city  as  verdant  as  the  hills,  —  all  was  done  that  en- 
mity could  effect,  to  overcast  his  share  of  the  national  joy,  to 
silence  his  teachings  to  the  wondering  people,  and  stop  his 
efforts  to  extract  from  the  picturesque  and  festive  rites 
some  lesson  of  gladder  tidings  and  deeper  wisdom.  He 
saw  amid  the  crowd  the  ofiicers  sent  to  take  him,  the  wily 
steps  and  hesitating  wills  with  which  they  tracked  his  wan- 
derings over  the  temple  courts,  the  exchange  of  whispers 
dropping  into  fixed  attention  with  which  they  listened  to 
him  here  and  there.  He  stepped  forward,  and  they  re- 
coiled, as  he  told  them,  with  an  air  of  divinest  quietude, 
that  he  should  be  there  yet  longer,  but  no  hand  would 
touch  him,  and  then  he  should  be  sequestered  in  a  place 
which  their  violence  could  not  reach.  And  there,  day 
after  day,  they  saw  him  still  gladdening  attentive  hearts, 
and  felt  him  subduing  their  own,  so  that  again  and  again 
they  ceased  to  be  his  enemies  and  became  his  followers : 
till  on  the  last  great  day,  they  beheld  him  standing  aloft  on 
the  precipitous  edge  of  Moriah's  rock,  watching  the  proces- 
sion that  climbed  with  the  water-bowl  from  Siloam's  stream 
below,  and  as  it  entered  with  its  pure  libation,  heard  him 
pronounce  that  solemn  invitation,  "If  any  man  thirst,  let 
him  come  unto  me  and  drink  of  living  waters."  They 
returned,  and  the  attestation  burst  from  their  lips,  "  Never 
man  spake  like  this  man." 


Christ's  treatment  of  guilt.  133 

Nor  was  it  merely  that  he  regarded  these  men  as  the 
poor  menials  of  others'  designs,  —  hirelings  of  guiltier  men. 
For  the  same  impersonal  tranquillity  appears  when  he  is  in 
contact  with  the  original  agents,  who  endeavored  to  crush  his 
cause,  and  actually  compassed  his  death.  Whatever  the 
agony  of  Gethsemane  may  have  been,  it  was  no  agony  of 
resentment :  the  controversy  of  that  bitter  hour  was  with 
the  Father  whom  he  loved,  not  with  enemies  whom  he 
feared.  Indeed,  the  nearer  these  enemies  came,  the  more 
did  the  serene  power  of  his  spirit  rise.  After  those  convul- 
sive prayers  which  had  pierced  the  midnight,  it  seemed  as  if 
angel-thoughts  had  stolen  in  to  strengthen  him.  At  the 
moment  when  the  tramp  of  feet  was  first  heard  upon  the 
bridge  of  Kedron,  and  the  torches,  as  they  passed,  flashed 
upon  its  rapid  waters,  he  was  prostrate  in  a  devotion  from 
which  tears  and  struggles  had-  now  passed  away.  When, 
later  still,  the  hum  of  approaching  voices  became  distinct, 
and  the  lights  gleamed  nearer  and  nearer  through  the  trees, 
he  was  bending  over  his  waking  disciples,  who  overheard 
him  breathing  the  wish,  that  they  could  indeed  sleep  on 
through  the  severities  of  that  dreadful  day,  and  be  saved 
from  the  faithless  desertion,  the  memory  of  which  would  be 
ever  bitter.  And  when  at  length  the  armed  band  con- 
fronts them,  and  he  startles  them  by  stepping  forth  in 
answer  to  his  name ;  when  the  kiss  of  betrayal  has  been 
given,  and  the  momentary  affray  which  Peter  had  chal- 
lenged has  been  stopped  by  his  healing  power :  when  all  are 
moving  from  the  place  with  sullen  haste,  —  the  priests,  doubt- 
less, eager  to  be  back  within  the  city  before  it  can  be  dis- 
covered by  what  nocturnal  exploit  they,  the  conservators  of 
law  and  right,  have  sullied  their  dignity,  —  Jesus  dives  at 
once  into  their  conscience,  flurried  already  with  fear  and 
guilt,  and  asks,  why  such  holy  men,  whom  often  he  has  seen 
listening  to  his  daily  teachings,  should  choose  so  rufiian  a 
way,  and  so  strange  an  hour,  for  a  deed  of  public  justice  ? 
Throughout  the  scenes  which  followed,  you  well  know  how 


134  Christ's  treatment  of  guilt. 

Jesus  maintained  the  same  majestic  and  unruffled  spirit; 
seeming  nobler  with  every  indignity,  and  of  prompter  self- 
forgetf ulness  with  every  added  suffering ;  yet  visibly  agitat- 
ing every  person  before  whom  he  was  brought,  with  the 
consciousness  of  crime  and  horror  in  the  transactions  of 
which  he  was  the  forgiving  victim.  Look  where  we  may, 
it  is  clear  that  resentment  had  not  the  faintest  share  in 
Christ's  feelings  towards  wrong  :  that  the  wrong  was  di- 
rected against  himself,  afforded  no  inducement  for  a  severer 
or  more  excited  estimate  of  its  enormity.  He  put  it  at  a 
distance  from  him :  its  relations  to  its  authors  and  to  others 
impressed  him  more  than  the  suffering  it  brought  upon  him- 
self ;  and  every  one  must  perceive  that  his  eye  is  fixed,  not 
on  its  cruelty,  but  on  its  awfulness,  its  blindness,  its  guilt. 

Yet  did  Jesus  give  no  sanction  to  the  morbid  doctrine  of 
a  sentimental  fatalism,  which  forbids  us  ever  to  be  angry 
with  the  wicked,  talks  whiningly  of  our  common  frailty, 
draws  an  immoral  comfort  from  God's  way  of  educing  good 
from  evil,  and  comprises  all  possible  cases  of  duty  to  wrong- 
doers under  one  formula,  "  Pity  and  forgive."  In  nothing 
do  we  notice  the  depth  and  truth  of  his  moral  perception 
more  clearly  than  in  his  different  treatment  of  vice  in  its 
several  forms  and  stages.  When  he  comes  before  "  Scribes 
and  Pharisees,  hypocrites,"  we  do  not  hear  the  tones  of  for- 
giveness, the  pleadings  of  the  mild  apologist  for  human 
infirmity,  the  effeminate  offer  of  a  futile  pity.  He  pours 
forth  an  intense  stream  of  natural  indignation,  and  blights 
them  with  the  flash  of  a  terrible  invective ;  he  tears  the  veil 
from  every  foul  purpose,  and  with  severe  justice  brands 
every  deed  with  its  own  black  name.  Here,  exposure,  not 
compassion,  is  the  proper  impulse  and  duty  of  a  noble  mind  : 
for  the  people  must  no  longer  be  deluded,  their  reason  per- 
plexed with  wretched  quibbles,  and  their  too-trusting  con- 
science corrupted  by  the  sophistries  of  sin.  It  were  poor 
generosity,  from  tenderness  to  a  selfish  faction,  to  let  the 
good  heart  of  a  nation  die.     Nay,  even  for  these  deceivers 


Christ's  treatment  of  guilt.  135 

themselves,  this  expression  of  moral  anger  was  precisely  the 
most  salutary  appeal.  For  it  echoed  the  secret  sentence  of 
their  own  hearts,  with  which  compassion  would  have  been 
altogether  discordant.  The  self-condemnation,  only  whis- 
pered before,  it  sent  in  thunder  through  their  hollow  souls  ; 
bringing  many  a  hearer  to  tremble  at  the  shock,  who  would 
have  scoffed  at  pity  as  a  weak  and  puling  thing.  This  prin- 
ciple, of  simply  giving  voice  to  the  present  sentiments  of 
the  conscience,  and  administering  the  feelings  for  which  its 
natural  justice  was  making  a  demand,  Jesus  appears  in- 
tuitively to  have  followed  in  all  his  dealings  with  the 
vicious.  When  he  reclined  at  the  table  of  the  Pharisee, 
and  shocked  him  by  allowing  a  woman  who  had  been  a 
sinner  to  find  admission  on  the  plea  of  discipleship,  and  the 
new  reverential  affections  of  her  nature  broke  forth  in  pas- 
sionate gratitude,  he  gave  no  check  and  no  rebuke,  nor 
simply  a  cautious  sanction.  The  convictions  which  rebuke 
serves  to  awaken  were  already  there :  to  reproach  would  be 
to  crush  the  fallen:  she  had  discovered  the  depth  of  her  mis- 
ery, and  yearned  ^or  the  profound  compassion  suited  to  so 
great  a  woe :  Jesus  knew  that  one  who  had  been  stricken  by 
a  love  so  pure  and  penitential  as  hers,  needed  only  to  have 
that  love  fostered  and  trained  to  act ;  and  so,  casting  himself 
with  a  bold  faith  on  the  capacities  of  a  truly  melted  soul, 
he  declai-ed  her  sins  forgiven.  But  where  again  no  such 
penitence  appeared,  and  to  resort  to  him  was  not  spontane- 
ous but  compulsory,  as  in  the  case,  of  the  woman  taken  in 
adultery,  he  observed  a  striking  neutrality  of  treatment. 
To  a  mind  heated  with  so  dreadful  and  public  a  shame,  to 
administer  reproach  would  be  cruelty,  to  give  consolation 
would  be  danger ;  and  he  simply  wards  off  the  savage  pen- 
alties of  the  law,  and  turns  all  his  direct  dealings  upon  her 
foul  and  sanctimonious  informers.  Their  conscience  per- 
suades them  that  he  knows  their  secret  history,  and  they 
skulk  away,  the  accused  instead  of  the  accusers  ;  while  on 
the  people  that  stand  by  is  impressed  the  awful  truth,  that 


186  Christ's  treatment  of  guilt. 

sinners  are  not  fit  to  judge  of  sin.  The  blindness  which  is 
induced  by  all  deliberate  injury  to  our  moral  nature,  and 
which  thickens  its  film  as  the  habit  grows,  is  one  of  the 
most  appalling  expressions  of  the  justice  of  God.  Moral 
evil  is  the  only  thing  in  his  creation  of  which  it  is  decreed, 
that  the  more  we  are  familiar  with  it,  the  less  shall  we  know 
of  it.  The  mind  that  is  rich  in  holiness  and  the  humanities, 
appreciates  every  temptation,  computes  the  force  of  every 
passion,  and  discerns  the  degradation  of  every  vice,  with  a 
precision  and  clearness  unknown  to  the  adept  in  wrong. 
When  that  wretched  woman  stood  alone  and  confounded 
before  Christ,  how  little  did  she  know  of  her  own  abased 
and  abject  mind,  how  much  less  of  the  majestic  being  before 
her,  whose  steady  eye,  as  it  looked  upon  her,  she  could  not 
meet !  yet  how  vividly,  and  with  what  results  of  considerate 
yet  cautious  sympathy,  did  the  disorder  of  her  moral  nat- 
ure present  itself  to  him  who  knew  no  defilement !  Like 
the  pure  and  silent  stars  that  look  down  by  night  upon  the 
foulness  and  the  din  of  cities,  his  heavenly  spirit  gazed  direct 
into  the  turbid  hiding-places  of  sin.  He  saw  it  indeed,  sim- 
ply as  it  will  see  itself  in  retrospect ;  not  perhaps  any  re- 
trospect in  this  life  ;  but  such  as  may  be  inevitable,  when 
the  exchange  of  worlds  takes  place ;  when  the  urgency  of 
pursuit  and  the  distractions  of  amusement  shall  have  ceased, 
and  left  us  alone  with  our  characters  and  our  God ;  when, 
one  order  of  employments  being  ended,  and  the  other  not 
yet  commenced,  there  copies  the  appointed  pause  for  thought 
and  judgment ;  and  having  waved  the  last  adieu,  we  flit 
away  along  that  noiseless  journey,  on  which  we  bear  with 
us  only  the  memory  of  the  past,  to  knock  at  the  awful  gates 
of  the  unopened  future. 

What  that  retrospect  may  be,  it  is  fearful,  but  not  impos- 
sible, to  think.  To  aid  the  thought,  it  has  been  remarked 
by  one  of  the  most  distinguished  physical  philosophers  of 
our  own  day,  that  no  atmospheric  vibration  ever  becomes 
extinct ;  that  the  pulses  of  speech,  when  they  have  done 


chkist's  tkeatment  of  guilt.  137 

their  work  and  become  to  our  ears  inaudible,  pass  in  waves 
away,  but  wander  still,  reflected  hither  and  thither,  through 
the  regions  of  the  air  eternally.  He  conceives  that,  as  the 
atmosphere  comprises  still  within  itself  the  distinct  trace  of 
every  sound  impressed  on  any  portion  of  it,  as  thus  the 
record  indestructibly  exists,  we  have  only  to  suffer  a  change 
of  position,  and  receive  the  endowment  of  an  acuter  sense, 
to  hear  again  every  idle  word  that  we  have  spoken,  and 
every  sigh  that  we  have  caused.  The  truth  is,  that  already, 
and  within  the  limits  of  our  mental  nature,  there  is  a  power 
that  will  effect  all  this ;  it  is  fully  within  the  scope  of  our 
natural  faculties  of  association  and  memory.  It  may  be 
doubted  whether  any  idea  once  in  the  mind  is  ever  lost, 
and  past  recall :  it  may  drop,  indeed,  into  the  gulf  of  for- 
gotten things  and  the  waves  of  successive  thought  roll  over 
it ;  but  there  are  in  nature  possible  and  even  inevitable  con- 
vulsions which  may  displace  the  waters,  heave  up  the  deep, 
and  disentomb  whatever  may  be  fair  or  hideous  there. 
There  needs  only  that  associated  objects  should  be  pre- 
sented, and  the  whole  past,  its  most  trivial  features  even,  — 
the  remnant  of  a  schoolboy  task  or  the  mere  snatches  of  a 
dream,  —  will  rise  up  to  view.  Make  but  a  pilgrimage  to 
the  scenes  of  your  early  days,  when  more  than  half  of  life  is 
gone ;  wander  again  over  the  peaceful  fields,  and  stand  on 
the  brink  of  the  yet  gliding  stream,  that  were  the  witnesses 
of  youthful  sports  and  cares ;  and  are  they  not  the  records 
of  them  too?  Does  not  remembrance  seem  inspired  and 
commissioned  to  render  back  the  dead?  And  do  they  not 
come  crowding  on  your  sense,  —  faces  and  voices,  and  mov- 
ing shapes,  and  the  tones  of  bells,  and  the  very  feelings  too 
which  these  things  awakened  once  ?  It  is  remarkable  how 
slight  a  suggestion  is  occasionally  sufficient  to  bring  back 
vast  trains  of  emotion.  There  are  cases  in  which  some  par- 
ticular function  of  the  memory  acquires  an  exquisite  sensi- 
bility :  and  usually,  as  if  God  would  warn  us  what  must 
happen  when  our  moral  nature  is  divorced  from  the  physi- 


138  Christ's  treatment  of  guilt. 

cal,  it  is  the  memory  of  conscience  that  maintains  this  pre- 
ternatural watch.  In  many  a  hospital  of  mental  disease 
(as  it  is  called)  you  have  doubtless  seen  a  melancholy  being, 
pacing  to  and  fro  with  rapid  strides,  and  lost  to  every  thing 
around;  wringing  his  hands  in  incommunicable  suffering, 
and  letting  fall  a  low  mutter  rising  quickly  into  the  shrill 
cry ;  his  features  cut  with  the  graver  of  sharp  anguish ;  his 
eyelids  drooping  (for  he  never  sleeps),  and  showering  ever 
scalding  tears.  It  is  the  maniac  of  remorse  ;  possibly  indeed 
made  wretched  by  merely  imaginary  crimes;  but  just  as 
possibly  maddened. by  too  true  a  recollection,  and  what  the 
world  would  esteem  too  scrupulous  a  conscience.  Listen  to 
him,  and  you  will  often  be  surprised  into  fresh  pity,  to  find 
how  seemingly  slight  are  the  offences,  — injuries  perhaps  of 
mere  unripened  thought,  —  which  feed  the  fires,  and  whirl 
the  lash,  of  this  incessant  woe.  He  is  the  dread  type  of 
hell.  He  is  absolutely  sequestered  (as  any  mind  may  be 
hereafter),  incarcerated  alone  with  his  memories  of  sin ;  and 
that  is  all.  He  is  unconscious  of  objects  and  unaware  of 
time  :  and  every  guilty  soul  may  find  itself,  likewise,  stand- 
ing alone  in  a  theatre  peopled  with  the  collected  images  of 
the  ills  that  he  has  done  ;  and  turn  where  he  may,  the  feat- 
ures he  has  made  sad  with  grief,  the  eyes  he  has  lighted 
with  passion,  the  infant  faces  he  has  suffused  with  needless 
tears,  stare  upon  him  with  insufferable  fixedness.  And  if 
thus  tlie  past  be  truly  indestructible  ;  if  thus  its  fragments 
may  be  regathered ;  if  its  details  of  evil  thought  and  act 
may  be  thus  brought  together  and  fused  into  one  big  agony, 
—  why,  it  may  be  left  to  "  fools  "  to  "  make  a  mock  at  sin." 


XV. 

THE  STRENGTH  OF  THE  LOKELY. 


John  xvi.  32. 

behold,  the  hour  cometh,  yea,  is  now  come,  that  ye  shall  be 
scattered,  every  man  to  his  own,  and  shall  leave  me  alone: 
and  yet  i  am  not  alone,  because  the  father  is  with  me. 

The  different  degrees  of  self-reliance  felt  by  different  minds 
occasion  some  of  the  most  marked  diversities  in  the  moral 
characters  of  men.  There  is  a  species  of  dependence  upon 
others,  altogether  distinct  from  empty-minded  imitation ; 
implying  no  incapacity  of  thought,  no  imbecility  of  judg- 
ment, but  often  connected  with  the  best  attributes  of  genius 
and  the  choicest  fruits  of  cultivation.  It  is  a  tendency 
which  has  its  root  in  the  sensitive,  not  in  the  intellectual 
part  of  our  nature ;  and  grows,  not  from  the  shallowness  of 
the  reason,  but  from  the  depth  of  the  affections.  It  arises 
indeed  from  a  disproportion  between  these  two  departments 
of  the  mind  ;  and  would  disappear,  if  force  were  either 
added  to  the  understanding,  or  deducted  from  the  feelings. 
It  is  the  dependence  of  an  affectionate  mind,  capable,  it 
may  be,  of  manifesting  great  power,  but  trembling  to  feel 
itself  alone  ;  —  of  a  mind  that  has  a  natural  affinity  for  sym- 
pathy, and  cannot  endure  its  loss  or  its  postponement ;  but, 
0*1  whatever  course  of  thought  or  action  the  faculties  may 
launch  forth,  finds  them  insensibly  tending  towards  it  for 
shelter.  This  temper  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  vul- 
gar and  selfish  craving  after  applause,  that  has  no  test  of 
truth  and  right  but  the  voice  of  a  multitude,  and  will  sell 
its  conscience  to  buy  off  a  frown.     The  feeling  to  which  I 


140  THE   STRENGTH  OF  THE  LONELY. 

refer  cares  not  for  numbers  or  for  praise  ;  it  deprecates 
nothing  but  perfect  solitude.  It  has  but  one  reservation  in 
its  pursuit  of  truth  and  reverence  for  duty ;  that  they  shall 
not  drift  it  away  from  every  human  support.  Place  near  it 
some  one  ajjproving  and  fraternal  heart,  and  its  self-respect 
rises  at  once ;  it  can  listen  unabashed  to  scorn  ;  it  can  stand 
up  against  a  menace  with  dignity ;  it  can  thrust  aside  re- 
sistance with  energy.  Lay  to  rest  the  trembling  spirit  of 
humanity  within  ;  and  the  diviner  impulses  of  the  soul  will 
start  to  their  supremacy. 

This  state  of  mind  may  be  illustrated  by  reference  to  its 
extreme  opposite  ;  and  the  contrast  may  bring  out  in  clearer 
light  the  strength  and  weaknesses  of  both.  There  are  per- 
sons to  be  occasionally  found  whose  minds  appear  to  per- 
form their  operations  as  if  they  were  in  empty  space ;  who 
reflect,  and  plan,  and  feel  in  secret ;  of  whose  processes  of 
thought  no  one  knows  any  thing  more  than  happens  to  be 
indicated  by  the  result ;  who  look  on  men  and  events  only 
as  instruments  for  the  execution  of  their  designs ;  who  are 
little  damped  by  universal  discouragement,  or  elated  by  uni- 
versal approbation  ;  and  rarely  modify  an  opinion  or  repent 
of  a  feeling,  however  singular  may  be  their  position  in  main- 
taining it.  If  others  agree  with  their  designs,  it  is  so  much 
force  to  be  reckoned  in  their  favor ;  if  they  disagree,  it  is  so 
much  resistance  to  be  overcome.  Human  ties  are  formed, 
and  their  energies  are  not  improved ;  are  broken,  and  their 
energies  are  not  weakened.  In  trouble,  they  apply  them- 
selves so  promptly  to  the  remedy,  that,  when  you  offer  your 
sympathy,  it  is  not  wanted :  they  are  fond  of  the  maxim, 
"  a  good  man  is  satisfied  from  himself ; "  and  so  truly  act 
upon  it,  that  the  genial  heart  and  helping  hand  instinctively 
shrink  back  from  their  hard  complacent  presence. 

Each  of  these  two  forms  of  human  character  has  a  certain 
species  of  power  of  its  own.  He  who  is  independent  of 
sympathy  is  remarkable  for  power  over  himself.  In  specu- 
lation, his  mind  operates  free  from  all  disturbing  forces :  he 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  THE  LONELY.        141 

goes  apart  with  his  subject  of  contemplation,  surveys  it  with 
a  serene  eye,  converses  with  it  as  an  abstraction,  having  no 
concern  with  any  living  interest.  His  faculties  obey  his 
summons,  and  perform  their  task  with  vigor,  paralyzed  by 
no  anxiety,  ruffled  by  no  doubt,  never  lingering  to  plead 
awhile  for  some  dear  old  error  before  it  go,  nor  pausing  to 
take  the  leap  to  truth  entirely  new.  In  action,  his  volitions 
are  executed  at  once  ;  nothing  intervenes  (assuming  him  to 
be  a  man  of  honest  purpose)  between  his  seeing  a  course  of 
wisdom  and  rectitude,  and  his  taking  it :  he  yields  nothing 
to  his  own  habits ;  he  waits  for  no  man's  support ;  if  men 
give  it,  it  will  show  their  good  sense ;  if  they  withhold  it, 
it  is  the  worse  for  themselves.  He  scorns  concession  either 
to  others  or  to  himself;  not  in  truth  comprehending  the 
temptation  to  it.  The  past  and  the  human  have  no  power 
over  him ;  he  needs  no  gathering  of  strength  to  tear  himself 
away;  all  his  roots  strike  at  once  into  his  own  present  con- 
victions; and  whatever  opposition  may  beat  on  him  from 
the  elements  around  does  but  serve  to  harden  them  to  rock, 
and  fix  them  there  with  immutable  tenacity. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  who  is  dependent  on  human  sym- 
pathy acquires  far  greater  power  over  others.  He  reflects 
and  reciprocates  the  emotions  of  other  minds ;  he  under- 
stands their  prejudices  ;  he  is  no  stranger  to  their  weak- 
nesses ;  he  does  not  stare  at  their  impulses,  like  a  being  too 
sublime  to  comprehend  them.  He  may  not  obtain  that  kind 
of  distant  respect  which  is  yielded  to  the  man  of  cold  but 
acute  and  confident  intellect;  —  a  respect  which  is  founded 
in  fear,  —  which  suppresses  opposition  without  winning  trust, 

—  which  silences  objectors  without  relieving  their  objections ; 

—  that  unsatisfactory  respect  which  we  feel  when  conscious 
that  another  is  right,  without  perceiving  where  it  is  that 
we  are  wrong.  But  he  may  earn  that  better  power,  which 
arises  from  profound  and  affectionate  knowledge  of  the 
human  heart.  There  is  no  human  being  to  whom  we  look 
with  so  true  a  faith,  as  to  him  who  shows  himself  deep-read 


142  THE   STRENGTH   OF   THE   LONELY. 

in  the  mysteries  within  us ;  who  seems  to  have  dwelt  where 
Omniscience  only  had  access,  and  traced  momentary  lines 
of  feeling  whose  rapid  flash  our  own  eye  could  scarcely  fol- 
low ;  who  puts  into  words  weaknesses  which  we  had  hardly 
dared  to  confess  in  thought ;  who  appears  to  have  trembled 
with  our  own  anxieties,  and  wept  our  very  tears.  This 
initiation  into  the  interior  nature  is  the  quality  which,  above 
all  others,  gives  one  mind  power  over  another.  If  it  comes 
upon  us  from  the  living  tones  of  a  friendly  voice,  we  listen 
as  to  the  breathings  of  inspiration  ;  if  it  act  on  us  only  from 
the  pages  of  a  book,  the  enchantment  is  hardly  less  potent. 
That  a  being,  distant  and  unknown,  perhaps  departed, 
should  have  so  penetrated  our  subtlest  emotions,  and  caught 
our  most  transient  attitudes  of  thought,  should  have  so 
detected  our  sophistries  of  conscience,  and  witnessed  the 
miseries  of  our  temptations,  and  known  the  sac  redness  of 
our  affections,  as  to  reveal  us  anew  even  to  ourselves,  truly 
seems  the  greatest  of  the  triumphs  of  genius.  It  is  a  triumph 
peculiar  to  those  who  love  the  sympathies  of  their  kind,  and, 
because  they  love  them,  instinctively  appreciate  and  under- 
stand them.  It  is  essentially  the  triumph  which  Christ  won 
when  the  minions  of  tyranny  and  hypocrisy  shrunk  back 
from  him  in  awe,  saying,  "  Never  man  spake  like  this  man." 
With  this  quality,  however,  great  feebleness  of  will,  and 
even  total  prostration  of  moral  power,  may  sometimes  be 
found  combined ;  and  we  may  almost  say,  the  greater  the 
intellectual  endowments,  the  more  likely  is  this  to  be  the 
case.  If  ordinary  minds  want  sympathy  before  they  can  act 
freely,  they  can  easily  obtain  it ;  their  ideas  and  feelings  are 
of  the  common  staple  of  humanity,  and  some  one  who  has 
them  too  may  be  found  across  the  street.  But  if  those  of  finer 
mould  should  have  the  same  dependence  of  heart,  it  may 
prove  a  sore  affliction  and  temptation  to  them ;  for  who  will 
respond  to  the  desires,  and  aims,  and  emotions  most  dear  to 
them  ?  They  wed  themselves  to  a  benevolent  scheme ; — it  is 
thrust  aside  as  a  chimera.   They  demonstrate  a  truth  of  start- 


THE  STRENGTH  OF  THE  LONELY.        143 

ling  magnitude  ;  —  it  is  acknowledged  and  passed  by.  They 
describe  some  misery  of  the  poor,  the  child,  or  the  guilty ; 
—  the  world  weeps,  and  the  oppression  is  untouched.  They 
pour  forth  their  conceptions  of  perfect  character,  and  seek 
to  refresh  in  men's  minds  the  bewildered  sentiment  of  right ; 
every  conscience  approves,  and  not  a  volition  stirs.  And 
thus  they  are  left  alone,  without  the  practical  support  of  a 
single  sympathy  :  what  wonder  that  they  think  in  one  way, 
and  act  in  another,  when  the  world  reverences  their  thoughts, 
and  ridicules  their  actions  ?  Compelled  by  their  nature  to 
desire  what  they  are  forbidden  by  men  to  execute ;  unable 
to  love  any  thing  but  that  which  is  pronounced  to  be  fit 
only  for  a  dream ;  secretly  dwelling  within  a  beauty  of  ex- 
cellence which  they  would  be  held  insane  to  realize,  —  what 
wonder  is  it,  if  their  practical  energies  die  of  dearth,  —  if 
they  begin  to  doubt  their  nobler  nature,  and,  while  cherish- 
ing it  in  private,  dishonor  it  in  the  world,  —  if  the  pure 
sincerity  of  their  mind  is  thus  at  length  broken  down,  and 
they  soil  in  act  the  spirit  which  they  sanctify  in  thought ; 
and  life  wastes  away  in  habits,  on  which  the  meditations 
of  privacy  pour  a  flood  of  ineffectual  shame,  and  in  impulses 
to  better  things,  more  and  more  passionate,  as  the  springs 
of  the  will  become  broken,  and  prayers  for  peace  of  more 
mournful  earnestness,  as  the  vision  sinks  into  melancholy 
distance  ? 

But  the  dangers  of  an  excessive  dependence  upon  sym- 
pathy are  by  no  means  confined  to  minds  of  this  order. 
There  are,  within  the  range  of  every  man's  life,  processes 
of  mind  which  must  be  solitary;  passages  of  duty  which 
throw  him  absolutely  upon  his  individual  moral  forces,  and 
admit  of  no  aid  whatever  from  another.  Alone  we  must 
stand  sometimes ;  and  if  our  better  nature  is  not  to  shrink 
into  weakness,  we  must  take  with  us  the  thought  which  was 
the  strength  of  Christ ;  "  Yet  I  am  not  alone,  for  the  Father 
is  with  me."  Jesus  was  evidently  susceptible,  in  a  singular 
degree,  to  the  influence  of  human  attachments ;  he  was  the 


144  THE   STRENGTH   OF   THE   LONELY. 

type  of  that  form  of  character.  Such  indeed  it  behooved 
one  to  be  who  was  to  be  regarded  as  the  perfect  model  of 
humanity;  for  while  the  self-relying  and  solitary  temper 
rarely,  if  ever,  acquires  the  grace  and  bloom  of  human  sym- 
pathies, the  mind,  originally  affectionate,  often,  by  efforts 
of  moral  principle,  rises  to  independent  strength ;  the  sense 
of  right  can  more  readily  indurate  the  tender,  than  melt  the 
rocky  soul.  And  that  is  the  most  finished  character  which 
begins  in  beauty,  and  ends  in  power ;  which  wins  its  way 
to  loftiness  through  a  host  of  angelic  humanities  that  would 
sometimes  hold  it  back ;  that  leans  on  the  love  of  kindred 
while  it  may,  and  when  it  may  not,  can  stand  erect  in  the 
love  of  God ;  that  shelters  itself  amid  the  domesticities  of 
life,  while  duty  wills,  and  when  it  forbids,  can  go  forth 
under  the  expanse  of  immortality,  and  face  any  storm  that 
beats,  and  traverse  any  wilderness  that  lies,  beneath  that 
canopy.  The  sentiment  of  Christ  in  my  text,  carried  into 
the  solitary  portions  of  our  existence,  is  the  true  power  by 
which  to  acquire  this  perfection.  What  these  solitary  por- 
tions are  will  readily  occur  to  every  thoughtful  mind.  An 
example  or  two  may  be  briefly  noticed. 

The  vigils  of  sickness,  —  of  those,  I  mean,  who  watch  by 
the  bed  of  sickness,  —  are  solitary  beyond  expression.  What 
loneliness  like  that,  which  is  the  more  dreadful  in  proportion 
as  the  friend  stretched  at  our  right  hand  is  more  beloved  ? 
Those  midnight  hours,  poised  between  life  and  death,  that 
seem  to  belong  neither  to  time  nor  to  eternity,  —  claimed 
by  time,  when  we  listen  to  the  tolling  clock,  -—  by  eternity, 
when  we  hear  that  moaning  breath ;  that  silence,  so  solid 
that  we  cannot  breathe  into  it,  so  awful  that  we  dare  not 
weep,  and  which  yet  we  shudder  to  hear  broken  by  the 
mutterings  of  delirium;  that  confused  flitting  of  thoughts 
across  our  exhausted  minds,  strangely  mingling  the  trivial 
and  the  solemn,  —  beginning  perhaps  from  the  grotesque 
shapes  of  a  moonlit  cloud,  then  sinking  us  deep  into  dreams 
of  the  past,  till  a  rustling  near  calls  us  to  give  the  cup  of 


THE   STRENGTH  OF   THE   LONELY.  145 

cold  water,  and  that  fevered  eye  that  looks  on  us  makes  us 
think,  where  soon  will  be  the  perturbed  spirit  that  lights 
it !  —  Oh,  what  relief  can  there  be  to  this  agony,  what  trust 
amid  this  despair,  but  in  the  remembrance,  "  I  am  not  alone, 
for  my  Father  is  with  me  ?  "  Serene  as  the  star  in  the  cool 
heavens  without,  gentle  as  the  loving  heart  whose  ebbing 
life  we  watch,  his  Infinite  Mind  has  its  vigils  with  us,  —  the 
vigils  of  eternal  Providence,  beneath  whose  eye,  awake  alike 
over  both  worlds,  sorrow  and  death  vanish  away.  Into  what 
peace  do  the  terrible  aspects  of  things  around  subside  under 
that  thought !  We  are  no  longer  broken  upon  the  wheel 
of  fatalism,  given  over  to  fruitless  and  unmeaning  suffering : 
the  feeling  that  life  is  going  wrong,  that  all  things  are  drop- 
ping into  wreck,  disappears.  We  rise  to  a  loftier  point  of 
view,  and  perceive  how  all  this  may  lie  within  the  perfect 
order  of  benignity;  how  death  in  this  world  may  be  deter- 
mined by  the  laws  of  birth  into  another ;  how  our  sensitive 
is  connected  with  our  moral  nature,  and  from  deep  trial 
great  strength  may  grow, — the  capacious  and  enduring 
mind,  the  hardy  and  athletic  will,  the  refined  and  gentle 
heart,  the  devoted  spirit  of  duty.  Enfolded  within  the 
Divine  Paternity,  we  have  one  fixed  and  tranquil  object  of 
our  thoughts.  From  that  centre  of  repose  we  can  look  forth 
on  the  fitfulness  of  sickness  without  despair ;  the  flying 
shadows  of  fear  seem  cast  by  an  orb  of  everlasting  light. 
He  that  in  this  spirit  meets  the  trembling  moments  of  life, 
will  gather  the  sublimest  power  from  events  that  seem  to 
crush  him,  and  come  forth  from  the  mourner's  watch,  not 
with  wasted  and  haggard  mind,  not  morose  and  selfish,  not 
with  passive  and  helpless  air,  as  if  waiting  to  be  the  sport 
of  every  blast  that  beats,  —  but  with  uplifted  conscience, 
with  distincter  purpose,  with  will  meeker  towards  others, 
and  sterner  towards  self,  and  character  tending  towards  the 
energy  of  the  hero,  and  the  calmness  of  the  saint. 

Again,  we  must  be  solitary  when  we  are  tempted.     The 
management  of  the  character,  the  correction  of  evil  habits, 

10 


146        THE  STRENGTH  OF  THE  LONELY. 

the  suppression  of  wrong  desires,  the  creation  of  new  vir- 
tues, —  this  is  a  work  strictly  individual,  with  which  no 
"  stranger  intermeddleth,"  in  which  the  sympathy  of  friends 
may  be  deceptive,  and  our  only  safety  is  in  a  superhuman 
reliance.  The  relation  of  the  human  being  to  God  is  alto- 
gether personal :  there  can  be  no  partnership  in  its  respon- 
sibilities. Our  moral  convictions  must  have  an  undivided 
allegiance  ;  and  to  withhold  our  reverence  till  they  are  sup- 
ported by  the  suffrages  of  others,  is  an  insult  which 'they 
will  not  bear.  What  can  those  even  who  read  us  best  know 
of  our  weaknesses  and  wants  and  capabilities  ?  They  would 
have  to  clothe  themselves  with  our  very  consciousness, 
before  they  could  be  fit  advisers  here.  How  often  does 
their  very  affection  become  our  temptation,  cheat  us  out  of 
our  contrition,  aitd  lead  us  to  adopt  some  pleasant  theory 
about  ourselves,  in  place  of  the  stern  and  melancholy  truth  ! 
How  often  does  their  erring  judgment  lead  us  to  indolence 
and  self-indulgence,  to  a  dalliance  with  our  infirmities,  and 
a  fatal  patience  with  our  sins  !  If  indeed  there  were  a  more 
prevalent  conscientiousness  in  the  distribution  of  praise  and 
blame,  —  if  all  men  felt  how  serious  a  thing  it  is  to  dispense 
such  miglity  powers,  —  friends  might  consult  together  with 
greater  security  respecting  their  moral  failures  and  obliga- 
tions :  penitence  might  pour  itself  forth  into  a  species  of 
auricular  confession  no  less  safe  than  natural :  the  sense  of 
wrong  would  become  more  profound,  when  the  violation 
of  duty  had  shaped  itself  into  words ;  and  the  secret  sug- 
gestions and  resolves  of  conscience  be  doubly  strong,  when 
echoed  by  the  living  voice  of  human  tenderness.  Even 
then,  however,  we  must  vigilantly  guard  our  own  moral 
perceptions,  clear  the  atmosphere  between  them  and  heaven, 
and  allow  no  sophistry  to  shade  us  from  the  eye  of  God. 
At  best,  we  must  often  have  to  forego  all  sympathy  :  none 
can  be  with  us  in  our  multiform  temptations.  Many  a  pur- 
pose fit  only  for  ourselves,  suited  to  the  peculiarities  of  our 
own  character  and  condition,  we  must  take  up  in  private, 


THE  STREN'GTH  OF  THE  LONELY.       147 

and  in  silence  pile  up  effort  after  effort,  till  it  be  accom- 
plished. And  in  these  lonely  struggles  of  duty,  in  this 
invisible  repression  of  wrong  impulses  and  maintenance  of 
great  aims,  the  inevitable  loss  of  human  aid  must  be  replaced 
by  our  affinity  with  God.  While  He  is  with  us  we  are  not 
alone.  He  that  invented  human  virtue,  and  breathed  unto 
us  our  private  veneration  for  its  greatness,  —  He  that  loves 
the  martyr  spirit,  scorning  suffering  for  the  sake  of  truth,  — 
He  that  beholds  in  every  faithful  mind  the  reflection  of 
himself,  ■ —  He  that  hath  built  an  everlasting  world,  at  once 
the  shelter  of  victorious  goodness,  and  the  theatre  of  its  yet 
nobler  triumphs,- — enwraps  us  in  his  immensity,  and  sus- 
tains us  by  his  love.  The  sooner  we  learn  to  lean  on  Him, 
and  find  comfort  in  the  society  of  God,  the  better  are  we 
prepared  for  every  solemn  passage  of  our  existence.  It  is 
well,  ere  we  depart,  to  confide  ourselves  sometimes  to  the 
invisible  :  for  then  at  least  we  must  be  thrust  forth  upon  it 
in  a  solitude  personal  as  well  as  moral.  The  dying  make 
that  pass  alone  :  human  voices  fade  away ;  human  forms 
retire ;  familiar  scenes  sink  from  sight ;  and  silent  and 
lonely  the  spirit  migrates  to  the  great  secret.  "Who  would 
not  feel  himself  then  beneath  the  all-sheltering  wing,  and 
say  amid  the  mystic  space,  "  I  am  not  alone,  for  the  Father 
is  with  me  ?  " 


XVI. 
HAND  AND  HEART. 


John  xiv.  23. 

if  a  man  love  me,  he  will  keep  my  words  ;  and  my  father  will 
love  him,  and  we  will  come  unto  him,  and  make  our  abode  with 

HIM. 

There  is  no  point  in  theoretical  morality  more  difficult  to 
determine  (if  we  may  judge  from  the  disputes  of  philoso- 
phers) than  the  comparative  worth  and  mutual  relation  of 
good  affections  and  good  actions.  Ought  it  to  be  the  direct 
and  primary  aim  of  the  teacher  of  duty  to  produce  a  harvest 
of  beneficent  deeds?  or  to  impart  clear  perceptions  and 
prompt  sensibility  of  conscience  in  relation  to  right  and 
wrong  ?  If  the  former,  his  instructions  will  present  an 
inventory  and  careful  valuation  of  all  possible  "  voluntary 
acts ; "  and  his  exhortations  be  addressed  to  the  hopes  and 
fears,  to  the  prudential  apprehensions  of  good  and  evil, 
which  operate  immediately  upon  the  will.  If  the  latter,  he 
will  meddle  little  with  cases  of  casuistry,  or  problems  which 
exhibit  duty  as  an  object  of  doubt ;  will  define  and  illumi- 
nate the  secret  image  of  right  that  dwells  within  every 
mind  ;  and  present  as  incentives  those  models  of  high  faith 
and  disinterested  virtue  which  kindle  the  reverence  of  the 
heart.  In  this  country,  especially  among  those  who  have 
been  most  anxious  to  "  enlighten  "  its  religion,"  the  predomi- 
nant attention  has  been  given  to  external  morality.  The 
practical  temper  of  the  English,  impatient  of  loud  profession 
and  sanctimonious   inconsistency,   reasonably  enough  cried 


HAND    AND   HEART.  149 

out  for  '■'-fruUr  Philosophy  caught  this  spirit,  and  em- 
bodied it  in  a  system  of  no  small  pretensions.  Seeing  that 
fine  sentiments  are  worthless  without  good  deeds,  the  mas- 
ters of  this  school  have  decided,  that  the  affections  have  no 
excellence  except  as  instruments  for  producing  action ;  that, 
intrinsically,  they  are  all  alike,  without  any  distinction  of 
good  or  bad  ;  that  moral  qualities  primarily  attach  merely 
to  practice,  derivatively  only  to  the  mental  tendencies  to- 
w\ards  practice,  and  in  any  case  are  constituted  by  the  effects 
of  conduct  in  producing  enjoyment  or  pain ;  that  the  mor- 
alist has  no  concern  with  the  motives  of  an  agent,  provided 
he  does  that  which  is  useful ;  that  the  only  measure  of  vir- 
tue, in  short,  is  the  amount  of  pleasure  it  creates. 

This  system  has  been  embraced  and  is  still  held  by  many 
Christians,  chiefly  among  the  churches  within  the  sphere  of 
Dr.  Priestley's  influence.  It  is  expounded,  in  a  form  full  of 
inconsistency  and  compromise,  by  Dr.-  Paley,  in  a  work 
whose  popularity  appears  to  me  rather  a  discredit  to  Eng- 
land than  an  honor  to  him :  and  though  it  has  been  a  general 
favorite  with  irreligious  moralists,  and  appears  in  natural 
reaction  from  the  enthusiasm  of  the  most  earnest  pietists,  it 
has  seldom  been  considered  hostile  to  Christianity  itself. 
This  is  no  fit  occasion  for  discussing  its  philosophical  pre- 
tensions :  and  were  it  not  for  the  extent  and  nature  of  its 
practical  influence,  it  might  be  abandoned  to  the  academic 
lecture-room,  where  the  rigorous  methods  of  thought  neces- 
sary for  its  examination  would  not  be  misplaced.  But  there 
is  one  particular  view  of  it  which  may  naturally  enough  be 
presented  here.  Its  characteristic  sentiment  may  be  placed 
side  by  side  with  those  of  the  Christian  morals,  and  the 
relation  between  them  ascertained.  And  no  one,  I  imagine, 
can  perceive  in  it  a  trace  of  Christ's  peculiar  spirit :  few 
surely  can  be  wholly  unconscious  of  the  wide  variance 
between  its  leading  ideas  and  his :  and  all  who  have  aban- 
doned their  minds  to  the  impression  of  his  teachings,  must 
feel  that  he  assigned  a  very  different  rank  to  the  affectionate 


150  HAND    AND   HEART. 

elements  of  character;  that,  not  content  with  tasking  the 
hand,  he  makes  high  demands  upon  the  heart;  that  public 
benefit  is  subordinate  with  him  to  personal  perfection ;  and 
that,  instead  of  merging  the  individual  mind  in  the  advan- 
tage of  society,  he  is  silent  of  the  happiness  of  society, 
except  as  involved  in  the  holiness  of  the  individual.  Noth- 
ing surely  can  be  further  from  the  spirit  of  Jesus  than  to 
measure  excellence  by  the  magnitude  of  its  effects,  rather 
than  the  purity  of  its  principle  :  else  he  would  never  have 
ranked  the  widow's  mite  above  the  vast  donatives  of  van- 
ity ;  or  have  praised  the  profuse  affection  of  the  penitent 
that  lavished  on  him  costly  offerings,  esteeming  them  yet 
less  precious  than  the  consecrating  tribute  of  her  tears. 
Here,  it  was  not  the  deed  whose  usefulness  gave  worth  to 
the  disposition,  but  the  disposition  whose  excellence  gave 
value  to  the  deed.  And  this  is  everywhere  the  character  of 
Christianity.  It  plants  us  directly  beneath  an  eye  that  look- 
eth  at  the  heart :  it  forgives,  in  that  we  "  have  loved  much  "  : 
it  throws  away  without  compunction  the  largest  husk  of  cer- 
emony, and  treasures  up  the  smallest  seed  of  life  :  instead 
of  sharpening  us  for  casuistry,  it  prostrates  us  in  worship  ; 
reveals  to  us  our  inner  nature,  by  bringing  us  in  contact 
with  God  who  is  a  spirit,  and  to  whom  we  bear  the  likeness 
of  child  to  parent ;  gives  us  an  intermediate  image  of  him 
and  of  ourselves,  Christ  the  meek  and  merciful,  whose  life 
was  a  prolonged  expression  of  disinterestedness  and  love  ; 
and  imposes,  as  the  sole  condition  of  discipleship,  "  faith  in 
him,"  —  implicit  trust,  that  is,  in  the  spirit  of  his  mind;  — 
self-precipitation  upon  a  piety  and  fidelity  like  his,  without 
concession  to  expediency,  without  faltering  in  danger,  with- 
out flight  from  suffering,  without  slackened  step,  though 
duty  should  conduct  us  straight  into  the  arms  of  ignominy 
and  death. 

That  Christianity  does  make  high  demands  upon  our 
affections  must  then  be  admitted.  Indeed  this  is  virtually 
confessed  by  the  enthusiastic  forms  into  which  it  has  burst, 


HAND    AND   HEART.  151 

by  the  outbreak  of  fervor  from  which  every  new  church  is 
born,  and  the  eager  efforts  made  to  sustain  this,  vivid  life. 
Nay,  it  is  privately  confessed  by  every  cold  and  languid  yet 
honest  heart,  that  cannot  lay  open  before  it  the  story  of 
Christ,  without  the  secret  consciousness  of  rebuke.  It  is 
confessed  by  the  anxieties  of  many  good  minds,  that  are 
ashamed  of  the  slow  fires  and  faint  light  of  their  faith  and 
love  ;  that  can  spur  their  will,  more  easily  than  kindle  their 
affections  ;  and  wish  they  were  called  upon  only  to  Jo,  and 
not  also  to  feel.  They  cast  about  the  vaguest  and  vainest 
efforts  after  deeper  impressions  of  things  holy  and  sublime  : 
they  wonder  at  the  apathy  with  which  they  dwell  amid  the 
infinitude  of  God  :  they  convince  themselves  how  untrue  is 
that  state  of  mind  which  treats  the  "  seen  and  temporal "  as 
if  there  were  no  "  unseen  and  eternal ; "  they  assure  them- 
selves how  terrible  must  be  the  disorder  of  that  soul,  whose 
springs  of  pure  emotion  are  thus  locked  in  death.  But  with 
all  this  they  cannot  shame,  or  reason,  or  terrify  themselves 
into  any  nobler  glow :  the  avenues  of  intellect,  and  judg- 
ment, and  fear,  are  not  those  by  which  a  new  feeling  is  per- 
mitted to  visit  and  refresh  the  heart.  The  ice  cannot  thaw 
itself ;  but  must  ask  the  warmer  gales  of  heaven  to  blow, 
and  the  sun  aloft  to  send  more  piercing  beams.  There  is 
nothing  vainer  or  more  hopeless  than  the  direct  struggles  of 
the  mind  to  transform  its  own  affections,  to  change  by  a 
fiat  of  volition  the  order  of  its  tastes,  and  the  intensity  of 
its  love.  Self-inspiration  is  a  contradiction  :  and  to  suspend, 
by  upheavings  of  the  will,  the  force  of  habitual  desire,  is  no 
less  impossible  than,  by  writhings  of  the  muscles,  to  anni- 
hilate our  own  weight. 

This,  you  will  say,  is  a  hard  doctrine  ;  that  our  religion 
demands  that  which  our  nature  forbids,  —  invites  a  regener- 
ation of  the  heart,  after  which  the  will  may  strive  in  vain. 
Yet,  I  think,  you  must  be  conscious  of  its  truth,  and  ac- 
knowledge that  no  spasm  of  determination  can  make  you 
regard  with  hate  that  which  is  now  an  object  of  your  love. 


152  HAND   AND   HEART. 

But  if  Christianity  presents  the  perplexity,  its  spirit  affords 
the  solution.  It  shows  us,  indeed,  that  to  gain  a  pure  and 
noble  mind,  great  in  its  aims,  resolute  in  its  means,  strong 
with  the  invincibility  of  conscience,  yet  mellowed  with  rev- 
erential love,  is  the  end  of  all  our  discipline  here.  But  it 
nowhere  encoui'ages  a  direct  aim  at  this  end,  as  if  it  could 
be  reached  by  the  struggles  of  a  day  or  of  a  year  :  it  nowhere 
invites  a  morbid  gaze  upon  our  own  feelings,  as  if  by  self- 
vigilance  we  could  look  ourselves  into  perfection.  In  Christ 
it  furnishes  us  with  an  image  of  divinest  beauty  that  we 
may  turn  our  eye  on  that,  not  upon  ourselves :  and  perverse, 
even  to  disease,  is  the  temper,  which,  instead  of  being 
engaged  with  that  sublimest  work  of  the  great  Sculptor  of 
souls,  whines  rather  over  its  own  deformity,  and  seeks  to 
cure  it  by  unnatural  contortions.  Christianity  sends  each 
faculty  of  our  nature  to  its  proper  office  ;  our  veneration,  to 
Christ ;  our  wills,  to  their  duty.  It  precipitates  us  on  action 
as  the  proper  school  of  affection  ;  and,  reversing  the  mor- 
alist's principle,  values  not  the  pure  heart  as  the  tool  for 
producing  serviceable  deeds,  but  the  good  deeds  as  at  once 
the  expression  and  the  nourishment  of  that  greatest  of  pos- 
sessions, a  good  mind.  It  was  not  by  retiring  into  himself, 
but  by  going  out  of  himself,  that  Christ  overcame  the  world ; 
not  by  spiritual  pathology  and  self-torture,  but  by  veritable 
"  sufferings,"  that  he  "  became  perfect ; "  not  by  measuring 
his  own  emotions,  but  by  oblivion  of  them  amid  a  crowd  of 
toils,  a  succession  of  fulfilled  resolves,  a  profuse  expenditure 
of  life  and  effort  having  others  for  their  object,  that  he  rose 
above  the  dignity  of  men,  and  ripened  the  divinest  spirit  for 
the  skies. 

Struck  then  by  the  word  of  Christ,  the  moral  paralytic 
must  "take  up  his  bed  and  walk."  It  is  surprising  how 
practical  duty  enriches  the  fancy  and  the  heart,  and  action 
clears  and  deepens  the  affections.  Like  the  run  into  the 
green  fields  and  morning  air  to  the  fevered  limbs  and  tight- 
ened brow  of  the  night-student,  it  circulates  a  stream  of 


HAND    AND    HEART.  153 

unspeakable  refreshment,  "  and  renews  our  strength  as  the 
eagle's."  Indeed,  no  one  can  have  a  true  idea  of  right, 
until  he  does  it ;  any  genuine  reverence  for  it,  till  he  has 
done  it  often  and  with  cost ;  any  peace  ineffable  in  it,  till 
he  does  it  always  and  with  alacrity.  Does  any  one  com- 
plain, that  the  best  affections  are  transient  visitors  with 
him,  and  the  heavenly  spirit  a  stranger  to  his  heart  ?  Oh 
let  him  not  go  forth,  on  any  strained  wing  of  thought,  in 
distant  quest  of  them  ;  but  rather  stay  at  home,  and  set  his 
house  in  the  true  order  of  conscience ;  and  of  their  own 
accord  the  divinest  guests  will  enter ;  he  hath  "  kept  the 
words  "  of  Christ,  and  the  "  Father  himself  will  love  him," 
and  they  "  will  come  unto  him,  and  make  their  abode  with 
him."  The  man  most  gifted  with  genius  and  rich  in  intel- 
lectual wisdom,  but  withal  barren  of  practice  and  self-in- 
dulgent, can  call  up  before  him  no  conception  of  moral 
excellence  so  authentic,  so  divine,  as  many  an  obscure  dis- 
ciple, who,  through  frequent  tribulation,  has  done  and 
borne  the  perfect  will  of  God.  Even  the  smallest  discon- 
tent of  conscience  may  render  turbid  the  whole  temper  of 
the  mind ;  but  only  produce  the  effort  that  restores  its 
peace,  and  over  the  whole  atmosphere  a  breath  of  unex- 
pected purity  is  spread ;  doubt  and  irritability  pass  as  clouds 
away;  the  withered  sympathies  of  earth  and  home  open 
their  leaves  and  live  :  and  through  the  clearest  blue  the 
deep  is  seen  of  the  heaven  where  God  resides.  And  here 
too  we  may  observe  the  opposite  effects  which  action  and 
experience  produce  upon  our  preconceptions  of  wrong  and 
of  right.  Do  the  right,  and  your  ideal  of  it  grows  and  per- 
fects itself.  Do  the  wrong,  and  your  ideal  of  it  breaks  up 
and  vanishes.  The  young  and  pure  mind,  stranger  yet  to 
the  vehemence  of  appetite  and  revenge,  looks  on  sin  as  a 
dreadful  and  demon  image,  and  shrinks  with  awe  from  its 
approach ;  shudders  at  the  laugh  of  guilty  revelry,  and 
gazes  on  the  face  of  acknowledged  crime,  as  if  it  were  a 
phantom  of  the  abyss.     Guilt  is  then  a  thing  unearthly  and 


154  HAND   AND  HEABT. 

preternatural,  whose  grasp  is  more  terrible  than  death. 
And  truly,  if  this  being,  now  innocent,  should  ever  become 
its  prey,  it  will  be  through  a  struggle  deep  and  deadly,  as 
with  the  tender  mercies  of  a  fiend.  But  once  let  that  struggle 
be  over,  and  the  fiend  vanishes  for  ever  ;  passes  into  plain 
flesh  and  blood,  that  "is  by  no  means  so  dreadful  as  was 
imagined ;  "  nay,  even  assumes  the  air  of  the  jovial  compan- 
ion, and  turns  the  dance  of  death  into  a  comedy.  The  true 
"  superstition  "  of  early  years  flies  before  the  false  "  experi- 
ence" of  maturity.  The  ideal,  so  much  juster  than  the 
actual,  is  gone  ;  and  there  falls  upon  the  heart  that  folly 
which  "  makes  a  mock  at  sin." 

In  saying  that  action  is  the  school  of  affection,  it  is  clear 
that  we  cannot  mean  mere  manual  or  physical  labor,  or 
activity  in  business,  or  even  the  mechanical  routine  of  any 
practical  life,  however  unexceptionable  be  its  habits.  The 
regularities  of  constitutional  goodness,  the  order  of  a  simply 
blameless  existence,  do  not  reach  that  pitch  of  energy  which 
sustains  the  noblest  health  of  the  soul :  these  may  continue 
their  accustomed  course,  and  yet  the  springs  of  inward  life 
and  strength  dry  up.  In  the  mere  negative  virtue  which 
abstains  from  gross  outward  wrong,  which  commits  neither 
theft,  nor  cruelty,  nor  excess,  and  paces  the  daily  round  of 
usage,  there  is  not  necessarily  any  principle  of  immortal 
growth.  The  force  requisite  to  maintain  it  becomes  con- 
tinually less,  as  the  obstructions  are  worn  down  by  ceaseless 
attrition  ;  and  the  character  may  hence  become  simply  au- 
tomatic, performing  a  series  of  regularities  with  the  smallest 
expenditure  of  soul.  To  nourish  high  affections,  worthy  of 
a  nature  that  hath  kindred  with  the  Father  of  spirits,  more 
than  this  is  needed  :  positive  and  creative  power,  spontane- 
ous and  original  force,  conquering  energy  of  resolve,  must 
be  put  forth  :  from  the  inner  soul  some  central  strength 
must  pass  upon  the  active  life,  to  destroy  that  equilibrium 
between  within  and  without  which  makes  our  days  mere 
self-repetitions,  and  to  give  us  a  progressive  history.    There 


HAND   AND    HEART.  155 

is  a  connection  profouncj  and  beautiful  between  the  affec- 
tionate and  the  self-denying  character  of  Christianity.  The 
voluntary  sacrifices  feed  the  involuntary  sympathies  of  vir-, 
tue  :  and  he  that  will  daily  suffer  for  his  duty,  nor  lay  his 
head  to  rest  till  he  has  renounced  some  ease,  embraced  some 
hardship,  in  the  service  of  others  and  of  God,  shall  replen- 
ish the  fountains  of  his  holiest  life ;  and  shall  find  his  soul 
not  settling  into  the  flat  and  stagnant  marsh,  but  flowing 
under  the  most  delicious  light  of  heaven  above,  over  the 
gladdest  fields  of  Providence  below.  I  know  that  the  mor- 
alists of  whom  I  have  before  spoken,  —  they  that  turn  the 
shrine  of  duty  into  a  shop  for  weighing  grains  and  scruples  of 
enjoyment,  —  entertain  a  great  horror  of  the  notion  of  self- 
sacrifice,  and  ridicule  the  doctrine  of  denial  as  ascetic. 
Any  interference  with  the  luxury  of  virtue  is  to  be  deplored  ; 
disturbance  to  its  repose  must  be  admitted  to  be  disagreea- 
ble, and,  "  so  far  as  it  goes,  an  evil  "  :  and  though  clashing 
pleasures  will  sometimes  present  themselves,  we  must  take 
care  never  to  let  go  the  nearer,  till  we  have  in  our  hands  the 
title-deeds  of  the  remoter.  It  is  surprising,  we  are  told, 
how  pleasant  a  thing  true  goodness  is,  if  we  will  only  be- 
lieve it.  It  may  be  so  ;  or  it  may  not  be  so  :  but  at  all  events 
he  who  goes  to  it  in  this  spirit  has  no  true  heart  for  it,  and 
shall  be  refused  the  thing  he  seeks.  God  will  have  us  sur- 
render without  terms ;  and  till  then,  we  are  fast  prisoners, 
and  not  free  children,  in  his  universe.  So  needful  is  sacrifice 
to  the  health  and  hardihood  of  conscience,  that  if  the  occa- 
sions for  it  do  not  present  themselves  spontaneously  in  our 
lot,  we  must  create  them  for  ourselves :  not  reserving  to 
ourselves  those  exercises  of  virtue  which  are  constitution- 
ally pleasant,  but,  on  the  contrary,  esteeming  the  asperity 
of  a  duty  as  the  reason  why  we  should  put  our  hand  to  it 
at  once  ;  not  acquiescing  in  the  facility  of  wisely-adjusted 
habits,  but  accepting  the  ease  of  living  well  as  the  peremp- 
tory summons  of  God  to  live  better.  He,  in  short,  is  no 
true  soldier  of  the  Lord,  nor  worthy  to  bear  the  Christian 


156  HAND   AND    HEART. 

armor,  who,  in  service  so  high,  will  not  make  an  hour's 
forced  march  .of  duty  every  day.  So  tasked  and  tested, 
the  inner  power,  the  athletic  vigor,  of  our  moral  nature, 
will  not  waste  and  die.  The  perceptions  of  goodness, 
beauty,  truth,  become,  when  we  are  thus  faithful,  singu- 
larly clear  :  there  ripens  within  us  the  fullest  faith  in  the 
moral  excellence  of  God ;  the  ties  that  bind  us  to  him  and 
to  his  children  are  drawn  more  closely  round  ;  and  in  this 
world  we  dwell  as  in  the  lower  mansion  of  his  house,  where 
also  the  "  Father  loveth  us,  and  maketh  his  abode  with  us." 

By  such  practical  performance  alone,  can  any  genuine 
love  of  man  be  matured  in  us.  Beneficence  is  the  true  school 
of  benevolence.  We  are  not  to  wait,  till  some  descending 
spirit,  uninvoked  and  unearned,  enters  us,  and  makes  the 
labor  of  sympathy  delightful ;  but  to  go  and  do  the  deed 
of  mercy,  though  it  be  with  reluctant  step,  with  dry  and 
parched  spirit,  and  without  the  grace  of  a  free  charity. 
Perhaps  we  may  return  with  more  genial  mind  and  liber- 
ated affections  :  and,  if  not^  we  must  the  sooner  and  the 
oftener  do  the  act  of  blessing  again,  though  it  be  amid  self- 
rebuke  and  shame,  and  recoil  with  no  peace  upon  the  soul. 
He  that  with  patience  will  become  the  almoner  of  God  to 
the  poor  and  sad,  and  ask  no  portion  of  the  blessing  for  him- 
self, shall  catch  the  spirit  of  the  divine  love  at  length  :  those 
whom  he  steadfastly  benefits  he  will  rejoice  in  at  the  end. 
Even  with  God  this  is  the  order  too  :  we  begin  with  being  his 
beneficiaries,  and  end  with  being  his  children.  He  created 
us  first  (and  that  was  blessing),  placed  us  in  the  glory  and 
immensity  of  his  universe,  and  conferred  upon  us  the  high 
capacities  and  multiform  nature  that  makes  us  his  own 
image :  and  then  regarded  us  with  his  divine  affectionate- 
ness,  and  embraced  us  in  his  everlasting  Fatherhood. 

By  such  practical  performance  alone,  can  we  dismiss  the 
clouds  of  doubt  and  ignoble  mistrust,  which,  really  covering 
our  own  disordered  minds,  seem  to  cast  shadows  around 
the  Most  High,  and  to  blot  out  the  heavens  from  us.     The 


HAND    AND   HEART.  157 

merely  worldly  man,  interred  amid  mean  cares,  doubts  the 
majestic  truths  of  religion,  simply  from  their  sublimity  and 
vastness,  which  render  them  incommensurable  with  his  poor 
fraction  of  a  mind :  let  him  go  and  do  a  few  noble  deeds, 
and  elevate  the  proportions  of  his  nature,  and  it  is  wonder- 
ful what  mighty  things  seem  to  become  possible  :  Deity  is 
near  and  even  present  at  once,  and  immortality  not  improb- 
able. And  as  for  the  self-inclosed  and  anxious  student,  his 
difficulties  may  be  referred  to  the  diseased  and  ascendant 
activity  of  a  subtle  understanding,  without  the  materials  of 
a  deep  moral  experience  on  which  to  work.  Let  him  rem- 
edy this  fatal  dearth ;  rouse  the  slumbering  strength  of  con- 
science ;  and,  quitting  the  theoretic  problems,  take  up  the 
practical  responsibilities  of  life  :  and  his  work  will  clear  his 
thought,  rendering  it  not  less  acute,  and  more  confiding  and 
reverential.  Seeing  more  into  his  own  nature,  he  will  pene- 
trate further  into  all  else,  especially  the  source  whence  it 
proceeds,  the  scene  in  which  it  is,  and  the  issue  to  which  it 
tends.  Of  all  depressing  scepticism,  of  all  painful  solicitude, 
not  the  agility  of  thought,  but  the  alacrity  of  duty,  is  the 
fit  antagonist.  At  least,  until  we  do  the  will  of  God,  it 
becomes  doubt  to  be  humble  ;  and  when  we  do  it,  assuredly 
it  will  be  yet  humbler. 


XVII. 
SILENCE  AND  MEDITATION. 


Psalm  lxih.  6. 

1  remember  thee  upon  my  bed,  and  meditate  on  thee  in  the 
night-watches. 

The  elder  Protestant  moralists  laid  great  stress,  in  all  their 
teachings,  on  the  duties  of  self-scrutiny  and  prayer.  And 
though  their  comj^laints  show  that  there  was  a  frequent 
neglect  of  their  injunctions,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that,  in 
our  forefathers'  scheme  of  life,  the  exercise  of  lonely  thought 
filled  a  much  larger  space  than  it  does  in  ours.  It  was 
deemed  shameful  and.  atheistical  to  enter  the  closet  for  noth- 
ing but  sleep,  and  quit  it  only  for  meals  and  trade :  passing 
the  awfulness  of  life  entirely  by,  and  evading  all  earnest 
contact  with  the  deep  and  silent  God.  A  sense  of  guilt 
attached  to  those  who  cast  themselves  from  their  civil  life 
into  their  dreams,  and  back  again.  That  the  merchant  or 
the  statesman  should  be  upon  his  knees,  that  the  general 
should  pass  from  his  despatches  to  his  devotions,  and  turn 
his  eye  from  the  hosts  of  battle  to  the  host  of  heaven,  was 
not  felt  to  be  incongruous  or  absurd.  Milton's  mind  gave 
itself  at  once  to  the  discord  of  politics  below,  and  the  sym- 
phonies of  seraphim  above  :  Vane  mingled  with  the  admin- 
istration of  colonies,  and  accounts  of  the  navy,  hopes  of  a 
theocracy,  and  meditations  on  the  millennium;  and  it  was 
no  more  natural  for  Cromwell  to  call  his  officers  to  council 
than  to  prayer.  Nay,  without  going  back  so  far,  there  are 
few  families  of  any  standing,  that  do  not  inherit  the  pious 


SILENCE   AND   MEDITATION.  159 

diaries  of  some  nearer  ancestry,  betraying  how  real  and  large 
a  concern  to  them  were  the  exercises  of  the  solitary  soul. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  there  is  a  great  difference  now. 
Not  that  Christians  may  not  be  found  in  many  sects,  and 
copiously  in  some,  with  whom  the  old  devout  habit  is  main- 
tained in  all  integrity ;  of  whose  existence  it  is  a  simple  and 
sincere  ingredient;  who  still  find  an  open  door  between 
heaven  and  earth,  and  pass  in  ?and  out  with  free  and  earnest 
heart.  But  these  represent  the  characteristic  spirit  of  a 
former,  rather  than  of  the  present  age.  The  sentiments  of 
our  own  times  everywhere  betray  the  growing  encroach- 
ments of  the  outward  upon  the  inward  life.  How  different 
is  our  modern  "  saying  our  prayers  "  from  those  wrestlings 
of  spirit,  and  groans  and  tears  that  convulsed  the  Covenant- 
ers of  old :  nay,  how  much  is  there  in  this,  —  that,  unless 
there  is  a  printed  page  before  us,  we  know  not  what  we 
want,  and  left  to  ourselves  should  scarcely  find  we  had  a 
want  at  all !  Prayer  by  the  printing-press  is  surely  a  very 
near  approach  to  piety  by  machinery.  The  public  changes 
in  the  faith  of  churches  which  are  conspicuously  taking 
place  around  us,  indicate  the  same  loss  of  depth  and  earnest- 
ness in  personal  religion :  for  what  do  the  hew  doctrines 
say ?  "I  cannot  stand  alone  with  God,  and  seek  his  pity 
to  my  solitary  soul ;  I  must  put  myself  into  the  visible 
church,  and  appropriate  a  share  of  his  favor  to  that  spiritual 
corporation ;  I  can  find  no  sanctifi cation  by  direct  contact 
of  spirit  with  spirit,  and  must  get  it  done  for  me  through 
priests  and  sacraments."  And  what  is  this  but  an  open 
proclamation  that  private  audience  with  God  has  become 
impossible,  and  he  can  be  approached  only  through  ambas- 
sadors? Everywhere  strength  seems  to  have  gone  out  from 
the  devotional  element  of  life.  Those  who  display  most  of 
this  element  are  no  longer,  like  the  Puritans,  the  strongest 
men  of  their  day,  most  resolute,  most  simple,  most  powerful 
in  debate,  most  direct  in  action  ;  but  are  felt  to  be  feminine 
and  subtle,  without  manly  breadth  of  natural  heart,  and  firm 


160  SILENCE    AND   MEDITATION. 

footing  upon  reality.  The  moments  each  man  spends  in  it 
are  seldom  his  truest  and  most  unforced ;  it  is  not,  as  once, 
the  clear,  deep  eye  of  his  nature  that  he  turns  to  Heaven, 
but  the  dead  and  glassy ;  and  he  who  is  without  his  sincer- 
ity in  his  closet,  and  with  only  half  of  it  at  church,  flings  it 
all  into  the  work  of  civil  life.  In  individual  character,  and 
in  society  nt  large,  power  seems  to  have  gone  over  from  the 
spiritual  to  the  secular. 

This  change  is  no  fit  subject  for  unmixed  complaint ; 
much  less  must  we  desire  to  terrify  men,  like  culprits,  into 
an  alarm  at  their  impiety,  and  an  affected  resumption  of 
the  ancient  discipline.  Old  ways  of  life  are  not  thrown 
aside,  until  they  become  untrue :  and  when  they  have  be- 
come untrue,  their  sanctity  is  gone ;  though  the  usage  of 
chiu'ches  may  plead  for  them,  the  laws  of  God  are  against 
them.  Who  can  recommend  prayer  to  one  who  has  lost 
the  heart  to  pray  ?  —  confession  to  one  who  is  stricken  by 
no  penitence?  —  the  words  of  trust  to  one  whose  God  has 
gone  into  the  darkness  of  fate?  —  self-examination  to  one 
who,  in  too  fine  a  knowledge  of  what  passes  within,  finds 
no  power  to  do  the  duty  without?  The  state  of  mind 
which  unfits  men  for  the  habits  of  our  fathers,  may  be  lower 
or  may  be  higher  ;  but  be  it  what  it  may,  there  is  no  virtue 
in  retaining  what  has  grown  false :  let  all,  in  their  belief  or 
unbelief,  their  clearness  or  perplexity,  ground  themselves 
only  upon  reality,  and  live  out  the  highest  conviction  not 
of  yesterday  but  of  to-day,  and  however  the  forms  of  our 
being  may  change,  its  spirit  will  remain  unceasingly  devout. 
If  you  ask,  "  What  is  it  that  has  rendered  the  lonely  piety 
of  our  forefathers  less  natural  and  possible  to  us  ? "  I  be- 
lieve the  reason  to  be  this :  —  their  lot  was  cast  near  the 
age  of  the  Reformation  ;  they  breathed  its  spirit  and  lived 
its  life ;  and  as  Protestantism  was  at  first  a  simple  insur- 
rection against  formalism  and  falsehood,  and  gave  to  the 
faith  within  the  authority  which  it  denied  to  the  church 
without,  so  did  it  exclusively  develop  the  inward  religion 


SILENCE  AND   MEDITATION.  161 

of  the  soul,  and  put  it  in  artificial  contrast  with  outward 
interests  and  human  duties.  Installing  the  private  con- 
science in  the  place  of  the  anointed  priest,  it  gave  that 
conscience  much  of  the  priestly  character,  inquisitorial, 
casuistical,  vigilant  and  stern  ;  and  sent  a  man  to  his  self- 
examination,  as  before  he  would  have  gone  to  his  con- 
fessional, to  question  himself  as  the  church  would  have 
questioned  him  before,  only  with  severity  more  searching 
as  his  consciousness  knew  better  what  to  ask.  Hence  arose 
an  anxious  scrupulosity  of  mind ;  a  loss  of  all  dependence 
except  on  the  divine  offices  of  the  solitary  soul ;  a  feeling 
of  terrible  necessity  for  the  help  and  strength  of  God ;  a 
keen  scrutiny  into  all  the  doublings  of  the  heart,  and  an 
apprehension  of  every  sophistry  of  sin  ;  passing  over  at  once 
from  the  gay  laxity  of  the  Catholic  into  a  grim  and  solemn 
earnestness.  The  change  was  noble  and  healthy,  only,  like 
all  reactions,  capable  of  excess.  Men  may  learn  too  much 
of  what  goes  on  within  them ;  their  spiritual  analysis  may 
be  too  fine ;  a  morbid  self-consciousness  may  be  produced, 
which  in  giving  sensitive  knowledge,  takes  away  practical 
power ;  and  he  who  will  microscopically  look  at  the  ultimate 
fibres  of  his  life-roots,  scrapes  away  the  element  in  which 
they  thrive,  and  withers  them  in  the  light  by  which  he  sees. 
We  must  ever  grow  from  darkness  and  the  earth ;  enough 
if  the  blossom  and  the  fruit  be  worthy  of  the  sunshine  and 
the  heaven.  Our  days  witness  a  recoil  from  the  extreme 
inwardness  of  our  forefathers'  religion :  human  affections 
warm  us  more  ;  human  duties  are  nobler  in  our  view ;  social 
interests  are  of  deeper  moment;  and  the  whole  scene  of 
man's  visible  life,  no  longer  the  mere  vestibule  of  an  invisi- 
ble futurity,  has  a  worth  and  dignity  of  its  own,  which 
philanthropy  delights  to  honor,  and  only  fanaticism  can 
despise.  For  my  own  part,  I  think  the  change  a  sign  of 
nature's  restorative  power,  and  see  in  it  the  stirrings  of  new 
health  :  even  though  partially  brought  about  by  temporary 
scepticism,  I  cannot  deplore  it,  for  it  shows  that  the  con- 

11 


162  SILENCE   AND   MEDITATION. 

science  cannot  go  on  living  in  a  pretence,  but,  in  retreating 
from  things  of  which  it  doubts,  gets  its  foot  upon  duties 
which  it  knows.  In  this  are  the  first  beginnings  of  new 
religion  to  replace  the  old  :  if  the  divine  earnestness  within 
us  only  shifts  and  does  not  die,  it  mattei's  little  what  becomes 
of  our  mere  theology ;  and  deep-hearted  practical  faithful- 
ness is  not  separable  long  from  true-thoughted  practical 
faith. 

Let  us  admit  then  that  our  revolt  against  the  old  spiritual- 
ism has  come  about  in  quite  a  natural  way ;  that  the  Puritan 
sentiment  was  fast  going  down  into  mere  moral  hypo- 
chondria :  and  that,  to  work  the  cure,  it  was  inevitable  that 
the  world  (as  divines  opprobriously  term  it),  i.e.  the  op- 
portunities of  action  with  a  view  to  temporal  good,  whether 
personal  or  social,  should  re-assert  its  sway.  Like  the  sick 
physician,  who  cannot  let  his  pulse  alone  or  cease  to  specu- 
late on  his .  sensations,  Christendom,  bewildered  by  its  own 
deep  knowledge  of  the  human  heart,  kept  too  inquiring  a 
finger  on  the  throbs  of  its  emotions,  and  fancied  many  an 
action  of  healthy  nature  into  a  symptom  of  fatal  disease : 
and  we  are  not  to  find  fault  with  the  remedy  of  Providence 
—  a  turn-out  into  the  open  air  and  various  industry  of  life; 
a  resort  to  the  plough,  the  loom,  the  ship,  and  all  the  arts 
by  which  it  is  given  to  man  to  make  the  earth  at  once  his 
subject  and  his  friend.  But  let  us  also  admit  that  the  out- 
ward life  has  for  some  time  past  tyrannized  over  us;  ex- 
travagantly invading  our  private  habits;  narrowing  our 
modes  of  thought  and  sentiment ;  benumbing  our  conscious- 
ness of  a  spiritual  nature ;  and  impairing  to  us  the  reality 
of  God.  Let  us  own  that  the  Divine  Spirit  is  gone  into  dis- 
tance and  strangeness  from  us,  and  is  hard  to  reach ;  that 
solitude  brings  no  unspeakable  converse,  no  ready  consecra- 
tion ;  that  things  just  next  the  senses  and  the  understanding 
seem  nearer  to  us  than  those  that  touch  the  soul ;  that  the 
crowd  and  noise  are  too  close  and  constant  on  us,  confusing 
our  better  perceptions,  and  leading  us  always  to  look  round, 


SILENCE   AND  MEDITATION.  163 

Beldom  to  look  up  ;  that  the  glare  of  the  lamps  has  destroyed 
the  midnight  and  put  out  the  stars. 

Now  this  despotism  of  the  outward  over  the  inward  life, 
this  suppression  of  every  attribute  not  immediately  wanted 
for  business  or  society,  is  a  misfortune  which  every  noble 
mind  will  assuredly  withstand.  It  is  not  right  to  live  as 
if  God  were  asleep,  and  heaven  only  a  murmur  from  his 
dreams.  It  should  make  some  difference  to  a  man,  whether 
his  Creator  be  here  in  the  present,  or  gone  off  into  the  past ; 
whether  he  himself  dwells  in  the  hollow  of  a  living  hand, 
or,  with  nothing  beyond  him  but  necessity,  struggles  for  his 
place  in  a  dead,  deserted  world.  And  this  difference  will 
not  be  realized,  nor  any  lofty  truth  of  character  attained, 
by  those  who  disown  the  claims  of  lonely  thought  and  silence 
in  religion. 

There  is  an  act  of  the  mind,  natural  to  the  earnest  and 
the  wise,  impossible  only  to  the  sensual  and  the  fool,  health- 
ful to  all  who  are  sincere,  which  has  small  place  in  modern 
usage,  and  which  few  can  now  distinguish  from  vacuity. 
Those  who  knew  what  it  was,  called  it  meditation.  It  is 
not  reading^  in  which  we  apprehend  the  thoughts  of  others, 
and  bring  them  to  our  critical  tribunal.  It  is  not  study.,  in 
which  we  strive  to  master  the  known  and  prevail  over  it, 
till  it  lies  in  order  beneath  our  feet.  It  is  not  reasoning.,  in 
which  we  seek  to  push  forward  the  empire  of  our  positive 
conceptions,  and  by  combining  what  we  have,  reach  others 
that  we  have  not.  It  is  not  deliberation.,  which  computes 
the  particular  problems  of  action,  reckons  up  the  forces  that 
surround  our  individual  lot,  and  projects  accordingly  the 
expedient  of  the  right.  It  is  not  self- scrutiny.,  which  by 
itself  is  only  shrewdness  or  at  most  science  turned  within 
instead  of  without,  and  analyzing  mental  feelings  instead  of 
physical  facts.  Its  view  is  not  personal  and  particular,  but 
universal  and  immense,  —  the  sweep  of  the  nocturnal  tele- 
scope over  the  infinitely  great,  not  the  insight  of  the  solar 
microscope  into  the  infinitely  small.    It  brings,  not  an  in- 


164  SILENCE  AND   MEDITATION. 

tense  self-consciousness  and  spiritual  egotism,  but  almost  a 
renunciation  of  individuality,  a  mingling  with  the  universe, 
a  lapse  of  our  little  drop  of  existence  into  the  boundless 
ocean  of  being.  It  does  not  find  for  us  our  place  in  the 
known  world,  but  loses  it  for  us  in  the  unknown.  It  puts 
nothing  clearly  beneath  our  feet,  but  a  vault  of  awful  beauty 
above  our  head.  It  gives  us  no  matter  for  criticism  and 
doubt,  but  everything  for  wonder  and  for  love.  It  does  not 
suggest  indirect  demonstration,  but  furnishes  immediate 
perception  of  things  divine,  eye  to  eye  with  the  saints, 
spirit  to  spirit  with  God,  peace  to  peace  with  Heaven.  In 
thus  being  alone  with  the  truth  of  things,  and  passing  from 
shows  and  shadows  into  communion  with  the  everlasting 
One,  there  is  nothing  at  all  impossible  and  out  of  reach. 
He  is  not  faded  or  slow  to  bring  us  light,  any  more  than  is 
that  sunshine  of  his,  which  is  bright  and  swift  as  ever.  He 
was  no  nearer  to  Christ  on  Tabor  or  in  Gethsemane,  than  to 
us  this  day  and  every  day.  Neither  the  nature  he  inspires, 
nor  his  perennial  inspiration,  grows  any  older  with  the  lapse 
of  time  ;  every  human  being  that  is  born  is  a  first  man,  fresh 
in  this  creation,  and  as  open  to  Heaven  as  if  Eden  were 
spread  round  him ;  and  every  blessed  kindling  of  faith  and 
new  sanctity  is  a  touch  of  his  spirit  as  living,  a  gifl  as  imme- 
diate from  his  exhaustless  store  of  holy  power,  as  the 
strength  that  befriended  Christ  in  temptation,  and  the 
angel-calm  that  closed  his  agony.  Is  it  not  promised  for 
ever  to  the  pure  in  heart  that  they  shall  see  God  ?  Let  any 
true  man  go  into  silence  ;  strip  himself  of  all  pretence,  and 
selfishness,  and  sensuality  and  sluggishness  of  soul ;  lift  off 
thought  after  thought,  passion  after  passion,  till  he  reaches 
the  inmost  depth  of  all ;  remember  how  short  a  time,  and  he 
was  not  at  all ;  how  short  a  time  again,  and  he  will  not  bo 
here  ;  open  his  window  and  look  upon  the  night,  how  still 
its  breath,  how  solemn  its  march,  how  deep  its  perspective, 
how  ancient  its  forms  of  light ;  and  think  how  little  he 
knows  except  the  perpetuity  of  God,  and  the  mysterious- 


SILENCE   AND   MEDITATION.  165 

ness  of  life  :  —  and  it  will  be  strange  if  he  does  not  feel  the 
Eternal  Presence  as  close  upon  his  soul,  as  the  breeze  upon 
his  brow ;  if  he  does  not  say,  "  O  Lord,  art  Thou  ever  near 
as,this,  and  have  I  not  known  thee?"  —  if  the  true  propor- 
tions and  the  genuine  spirit  of  life  do  not  open  on  his  heart 
with  infinite  clearness,  and  show  him  the  littleness  of  his 
temptations,  and  the  grandeur  of  his  trust.  He  is  ashamed 
to  have  found  weariness  in  toil  so  light,  and  tears  where 
there  was  no  trial  to  the  brave.  He  discovers  with  astonish- 
ment how  small  the  dust  that  has  blinded  him,  and  from 
the  height  of  a  quiet  and  holy  love  looks  down  with  incred- 
ulous sorrow  on  the  jealousies  and  fears  and  irritations  that 
have  vexed  his  life.  A  mighty  wind  of  resolution  sets  in 
strong  upon  him,  and  freshens  the  whole  atmosphere  of  his 
soul ;  sweeping  down  before  it  the  light  flakes  of  difficulty, 
till  they  vanish  like  snow  upon  the  sea.  He  is  imprisoned 
no  more  in  a  small  compartment  of  time,  but  belongs  to  an 
eternity  which  is  now  and  here.  The  isolation  of  his  separ 
rate  spirit  passes  away ;  and  with  the  countless  multitude 
of  souls  akin  to  God,  he  is  but  as  a  wave  of  His  unbounded 
deep.  He  is  at  one  with  Heaven,  and  hath  found  the  secret 
place  of  the  Almighty. 

Silence  is  in  truth  the  attribute  of  God ;  and  those  who 
seek  him  from  that  side  invariably  learn  that  meditation  is 
not  the  dream  but  the  reality  of  life  ;  not  its  illusion  but  its 
truth ;  not  its  weakness  but  its  strength.  Such  act  of  the 
mind  is  quite  needful,  in  order  to  rectify  the  estimates  of 
the  senses  and  the  lower  understanding,  to  shake  off  the 
drowsy  order  of  perceptions,  in  which,  with  the  eyes  of  the 
soul  half  closed,  we  are  apt  to  doze  away  existence  here. 
Neglecting  it  now,  we  shall  wake  into  it  hereafter,  and  find 
that  we  have  been  walking  in  our  sleep.  It  is  necessary 
even  for  preserving  the  truthfulness  of  our  practical  life. 
It  is  always  the  tendency  of  action  to  fall  into  routine  and 
become  mechanical ;  to  become  less  and  less  dependent  on 
the  living  forces  of  the  will,  and  to  continue  itself  by  mere 


166  SILENCE  AND  MEDITATION. 

momentum  in  the  direction  it  has  once  assumed.  When 
conscience  and  not  passion  presides  over  life,  this  tendency- 
is  not  abated  but  confirmed  :  for  conscience  is  essentially 
systematic^  subdues  every  thing  to  a  fixed  order,  and  then,  is 
troubled  or  content,  according  as  this  is  violated  or  ob- 
served. But  the  inner  spirit  of  the  mind,  which  all  outward 
action  should  express,  is  not  naturally  thus  inflexible :  it 
drifts  away  from  its  old  anchorages,  and  gets  afloat  upon 
new  tides  of  thought ;  as  experience  deepens,  existence 
ceases  to  be  the  same,  and  the  proportions  in  which  things 
lie  within  our  affections  are  materially  changed;  as  the 
ascelit  of  time  is  made,  life  is  seen  from  a  higher  point, 
and  fresh  fields  of  truth  and  duty  spread  before  our  view. 
Habit  being  conservative,  faith  and  feeling  being  progressive, 
unless  their  mutual  relation  be  constantly  re-adjusted  by 
meditation,  they  will  cease  to  correspond,  and  become  mis- 
erably divergent ;  our  action  will  not  be  true^  our  thought 
will  not  be  real;  both  will  be  weak  and  dead ;  both  distrust- 
ful as  a  culprit ;  both  relying  on  hollow  credit,  and  empty 
of  solid  wealth;  and  our  whole  life,  begun  perhaps  in  the 
order  of  conscience,  and  moving  on  externally  the  same, 
may  become  a  semblance 'and  a  cheat.  Bare  moral  princi- 
ple, unless  holding  of  something  more  divine,  has  but  an 
unsafe  tenure  of  the  wisdom  and  the  strength  of  life. 

And  even  when  the  right  is  clearly  sem,  meditation  is 
needed  to  collect  our  powers  to  do  it.  It  is  the  great  store- 
house of  our  spiritual  dynamics,  where  divine  energies  lie 
hid  for  any  enterprise,  and  the  hero  is  strengthened  for  his 
field.  All  great  things  are  born  of  silence.  True,  the  fury 
of  destructive  passion  may  start  up  in  the  hot  conflict  of 
life,  and  go  forth  with  tumultuous  desolation.  But  all  benef- 
icent and  creative  power  gathers  itself  together  in  silence, 
ere  it  issues  out  in  might.  Force  itself  indeed  is  naturally 
silent,  and  only  makes  itself  heard,  if  at  all,  when  it  strikes 
upon  obstructions  to  bear  them  away  as  it  returns  to  equilib- 
rium again.     The  very  hurricane  that  roars  over  land  and 


SILENCE  AND   MEDITATION.  167 

ocean,  flits  noiselessly  through  spaces  where  nothing  meets  it. 
The  blessed  sunshine  says  nothing,  as  it  warms  the  vernal 
earth,  tempts  out  the  tender  grass,  and  decks  the  field  and 
forest  in  their  glory.  Silenqe  came  before  creation,  and  the 
heavens  were  spread  without  a  word.  Christ  was  born  at 
dead  of  night ;  and  though  there  has  been  no  power  like  his, 
*'  He  did  not  strive  nor  cry,  neither  was  his  voice  heard  in 
the  streets."  Nowhere  can  you  find  any  beautiful  work,  any 
noble  design,  any  durable  endeavor,  that  was  not  matured 
in  long  and  patient  silence,  ere  it  spake  out  in  its  accomplish- 
ment. There  it  is  that  we  accumulate  the  inward  power 
which  we  distribute  and  spend  in  action ;  put  the  smallest 
duty  before  us  in  dignified  and  holy  aspects ;  and  reduce 
the  severest  hardships  beneath  the  foot  of  our  self-denial. 
There  it  is  that  the  soul,  enlarging  all  its  dimensions  at 
once,  acquires  a  greater  and  more  vigorous  being,  and  gath- 
ers up  its  collective  forces  to  bear  down  upon  the  piece- 
meal difficulties  of  life,  and  scatter  them  to  dust.  There 
alone  can  we  enter  into  that  spirit  of  self-abandonment,  by 
which  we  take  up  the  cross  of  duty,  however  heavy,  and 
tread  the  dolorous  way  with  feet  however  worn  and  bleed- 
ing. And  thither  shall  we  return  again,  only  into  higher 
peace  and  more  triumphant  power,  when  the  labor  is  over 
and  the  victory  won,  and  we  are  called  by  death  into  God's 
loftiest  watch-tower  of  contemplation. 


XVIIl. 
WINTER  WORSHIP. 


John  y.  13. 
akd  he  that  was  healed  wist  not  who  it  was. 

If  the  first  power  of  Christmnity  was  embodied  in  miracle, 
it  was  in  miracle  so  distinctly  expressive  of  its  spirit,  and  so 
analogous  to  its  natural  agency  in  the  world,  as  to  invite 
rather  than  repel  our  imitation.  Whatever  be  meant  by  the 
two  great  preternatural  endowments  entrusted  to  its  earliest 
missionaries,  —  the  gift  of  tongues  and  the  gift  of  healing, 
—  they  represent  clearly  enough  the  two  grand  functions  of 
our  religion,  —  to  bear  persuasion  to  the  minds,  and  bring 
mercy  to  the  physical  ills,  of  men.  On  that  summer  morn- 
ing in  Jerusalem,  when  the  men  of  Galilee  stood  forth 
within  the  temple  courts  to  preach  the  first  glad  tidings  to 
the  strangers  of  Parthia,  and  Greece,  and  Rome,  and  with 
their  speech  reached  the  minds  of  that  multitude  of  many 
tongues,  what  better  symbol  could  there  be  of  that  religion, 
whose  spirit  is  intelligible  to  all,  because  it  addresses  itself 
to  the  universal  human  heart,  and  speaks,  not  the  artificial 
jargon  of  sects  and  nations,  but  the  natural  language  of  the 
affections,  which  are  immortal.  And  when  the  crowd  of 
weary  sufferers  thronged  around  the  Apostles'  steps  in  the 
city,  the  blind  supporting  the  lame,  and  the  lame  eyes  to 
the  blind  ;  or  when  the  solitary  leper  saw  them  in  the  field, 
and  made  his  gesture  of  entreaty  from  afar,  and  all  were 
healed, — how  better  could  be  represented  the  character  of 
that  faith,  which  has  never  set  eyes  on  pain  without  yield- 


WINTER   WORSHIP.  169 

ing  it  a  tear;  —  which,  in  proportion  as  it  has  been  cordially- 
embraced,  has  sickened  the  heart  of  scenes  of  suffering  and 
blood,  and  lessened,  age  after  age,  the  stripes  wherewith 
humanity  is  stricken.  We  neither  claim  nor  ask  for  the 
cloven  tongues  of  a  divine  persuasion  :  we  boast  not  of  any 
arm  of  miracle  which  we  can  lay  bare  in  conflict  with  dis- 
ease and  sorrow  :  but  in  the  spirit  of  these  acts  of  Provi- 
dence we  may  participate.  While  fanatics  vainly  pretend 
to  repeat  their  marvellousness,  we  may  choose  the  better 
part,  and  copy  their  beneficence.  The  world  needs  the 
preachers  of  wonders,  less  than  the  apostles  of  charity. 

And,  whatever  its  accessories  of  miracle,  nothing  could  be 
more  unostentatious  than  the  diffusion  of  Christ's  mercy  by 
its  missionaries  in  the  days  of  old.  Begiiming  with  the 
provinces  of  Palestine,  it  passed,  from  village  to  village  of 
the  interior,  from  city  to  city  of  the  vast  empire's  various 
coast :  along  the  shores  of  Asia,  beneath  the  citadels  of 
Greece,  to  the  world's  great  palace  on  the  Tiber,  it  stole 
along,  fleet  and  silent  as  the  wind  that  bloweth  where  it 
listeth,  sweeping  through  many  a  foul  recess,  and  leaving 
health  where  it  found  pestilence.  Our  imagination,  cor- 
rupted by  the  pomp  of  history,  dwells  perhaps  too  much  on 
the  more  brilliant  positions  and  marked  triumphs  of  the 
ancient  gospel.  We  follow  Paul  through  his  vicissitudes, 
and  feel  an  idle  pride  in  his  most  conspicuous  adventures : 
and  when  he  stretches  forth  the  hand  and  speaks  before 
King  Agrippa ;  when  idolators  mistake  the  bearer  of  a  god- 
like message  for  a  god,  and  bow  before  him,  as  to  Mercury ; 
when  in  Ephesus  he  becomes  the  rival  of  Diana,  and  ruins 
the  craftsmen  of  the  silver  shrines ;  when  philosophy  listens 
to  him  on  Areopagus,  and  the  Furies  still  slumber  within 
hearing  in  their  grove,  —  we  vainly  think  that  he  derives  his 
greatest  dignity  from  the  scenes  in  the  midst  of  which  he 
stands,  a  contrast  and  a  stranger.  As  we  would  deserve  the 
Christian  name,  let  us  look  more  deeply  into  his  mission, 
and  adopt  more  fully  the  spirit  of  his  mind.     Watch  him 


170  WINTER   WORSHIP. 

even  in  Rome,  where  he  dwelt,  though  a  prisoner,  in  his 
own  hired  house ;  and  where  shall  we  seek  for  him  in  that 
dazzling  metropolis?  He  was  not  one  to  pass  through  its 
scenes  of  magnificence  with  stupid  and  fanatic  indifference, 
to  find  himself  surrounded  by  the  monuments  of  ancient 
freedom,  and  listen  for  the  first  time  to  the  very  language  of 
the  world's  conquerors,  without  catching  the  inspiration  of 
history,  and  feeling  the  solemn  shadow  of  the  past  fall  upon 
him.  I  do  not  say  that  he  never  paused  beneath  the  senate- 
house  to  think  of  the  voices  that  had  been  heard  within  its 
walls ;  or  climbed  the  capitol,  once  the  palace  of  the  repub- 
lic, now  its  shrine ;  or  started  at  the  fasces,  stern  emblem  of 
a  justice  now  no  more ;  or  went  without  excitement  into  the 
imperial  presence  through  the  very  gardens  where  his  own 
blood  should  hereafter  be  shed  in  merriment.  But  his  daily 
walks  passed  all  these  splendors  by :  they  dived  into  the 
lanes  and  suburbs  on  which  no  glory  of  history  is  shed,  and 
which  made  Rome  the  sink  and  curse,  while  it  was  the  ruler, 
of  the  nations :  they  found  the  haunts  of  the  scorned  He- 
brew :  they  startled  the  degraded  revels  of  the  slave :  they 
sought  out  the  poor  foreigner,  attracted  by  the  city's  wealth, 
and  perishing  amid  its  desolation :  they  crept  to  the  pallet 
on  which  fever  and  poverty  were  stretched,  tendering  the 
hand  of  restoration,  and  whispering  the  lessons  of  peace. 
This  was  his  noblest  dignity :  not  that  he  publicly  pleaded 
before  princes,  but  that  he  secretly  solaced  the  outcast  and 
the  friendless ;  not  that  he  paced  the  forum,  but  that  he 
lingered  in  the  dens  of  wretchedness,  and  refreshed  the 
hardened  heart  with  gentle  sympathies,  and  linked  the  alien 
with  the  fraternity  of  men,  and  shed  upon  the  darkest  lot 
a  repose  on  Providence  and  a  light  of  hope.  And  what  is 
true  of  this  great  apostle,  is  true  of  the  religion  which  he 
spread,  and  which  we  profess.  Its  true  dignity  is,  that  un- 
seen it  has  ever  gone  about  doing  good.  Link  after  link  has 
it  struck  from  the  chain  of  every  human  thraldom :  error 
after  error  has  it  banished  :  pain  after  pain  has  it  driven 


WINTER   WORSHIP.  171 

from  body  or  from  mind :  and  so  silently  has  the  blessing 
come,  that  (like  the  lame  whom  Peter  made  to  walk)  "he 
that  was  healed  wist  not  who  it  was." 

It  can  never  be  unseasonable  for  those  that  bear  the  name 
of  Christ  to  imitate  his  spirit,  and  to  address  themselves  to 
the  great  mission  which  Providence  has  assigned  to  their 
religion  (that  is,  to  themselves),  as  the  antagonist  power 
to  those  human  sufferings,  which  may  be  lightened  at  least, 
if  not  remedied.  But  this  period  of  the  year*  brings  with 
it  a  distinct  and  peculiar  call  to  remember  with  a  thought  of 
mercy  the  several  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to.  Every  season 
has  its  appropriate  worship,  and  demands  an  appropriate 
recognition :  for  each  presents  in  some  peculiar  form  the 
physical  activity  of  nature,  which  is,  in  fact,  the  immediate 
energy  of  God.  If,  in  the  picturesque  spirit  of  ancient 
times,  we  had  our  annual  festivals  for  remembering  the 
several  aspects  of  our  lot,  and  bringing  successively  before 
the  eye  the  many-colored  phases  of  human  existence,  we 
should  cast  lots  among  the  days  of  spring  for  an  anniversary 
of  life  and  health,  when  earth  is  unburdening  her  heart  to 
God,  and  framing  from  a  thousand  new-born  melodies  an 
anthem  of  brilliant  praise.  For  the  celebration  of  disease 
and  death  we  should  resort  to  the  days  of  the  declining 
year :  and  instead  of  leaping  on  the  green  sod  and  pouring 
forth  the  hymn  of  joy,  we  should  kneel  upon  the  rotting 
leaves  and  pray.  However  constant  the  visitations  of  sick- 
ness and  bereavement,  the  fall  of  the  year  is  most  thickly 
strewn  with  the  fall  of  human  life.  Everywhere  the  spirit 
of  some  sad  power  seems  to  direct  the  time :  it  hides  from 
us  the  blue  heavens;  it  makes  the  green  wave  turbid;  it 
walks  through  the  fields,  and  lays  the  damp,  ilngathered 
harvest  low;  it  cries  out  in  the  night  wind  and  the  shrill 
hail;  it  steals  the  summer  bloom  from  the  infant  cheek;  it 
makes  old  age  shiver  to  the  heart ;  it  goes  to  the  church- 
yard, and  chooses  many  a  grave;  it  flies  to  the  bell,  and 

*  This  Discourse  was  preached  at  the  end  of  November. 


172  WINTER   WORSHIP. 

enjoins  it  when  to  toll.  It  is  God  that  goes  his  yearly- 
round  ;  that  gathers  up  the  appointed  lives ;  and,  even  where 
the  hour  is  not  come,  engraves  by  pain  and  poverty  many  a 
sharp  and  solemn  lesson  on  the  heart. 

How  then  shall  we  render  the  fitting  worship  of  the  sea- 
son? We  do  so,  when  we  think  of  these  things  in  the 
spirit  of  religion ;  when  we  regard  them  in  their  relation 
to  the  great  Will  which  produces  them ;  when,  instead  of 
meeting  them  in  the  spirit  of  recklessness,  or  viewing  in 
them  the  triumph  of  disorder,  or  shrinking  from  them  in 
imbecile  fear,  we  recognize  their  position  in  a  system  of 
universal  Providence,  various  in  its  means,  but  paternal  in 
Us  spirit  and  beneficent  in  its  ends ;  when  "  none  of  these 
things  move  us,"  except  to  a  more  revereptial  sense  of  mys- 
tery, and  a  serener  depth  of  trust.  In  a  season  of  mortality, 
it  is  surely  impossible  to  forget  the  relations  of  other  scenes 
to  this ;  that  departure  from  this  life  is  birth  into  another ; 
that  the  immortal  rises  where  the  mortal  falls ;  that  the  fare- 
well in  the  vale  below  is  followed  by  greetings  on  the  hills 
above ;  so  that,  if  sympathy  with  mourners  here  permit,  the 
sorrows  of  the  bereaved  on  earth  are  the  festival  of  the 
redeemed  in  heaven. 

We  render  the  appropriate  worship  of  the  season,  when 
we  think  of  the  painful  passages  of  human  life,  not  merely 
as  proceeding  from  God,  but  as  incident  to  our  own  lot ;  not 
merely  in  the  spirit  of  religion,  but  in  that  of  self-appli- 
cation. It  is  difficult  for  the  living  and  the  vigorous  to 
realize  the  idea  of  sickness  and  of  death  :  and  though  within 
a  few  paces  of  our  daily  walks  there  are  beings  that  lie  in 
the  last  struggle,  and  some  sufferer's  moan  escapes  with 
every  breath  that  flies,  yet  whenever  pain  fairly  seizes  our 
persons  in  his  grasp,  or  enters  and  usurps  our  homes,  wo 
start  as  if  he  were  a  stranger.  And  perhaps  it  will  be 
asked,  "  Why  should  it  be  otherwise  ?  Why  forestall  the 
inevitable  day,  and  let  the  damp  cloud  of  expectation  fall  on 
the  illumined  passages  of  life  ?  "     I  grant  that  to  remember 


WINTER   WORSHIP.  173 

the  conditions  of  our  existence  with  such  result  as  this,  to 
think  of  them  in  an  abject  and  melancholy  spirit,  is  no  act  of 
wisdom  or  of  duty.  I  know  of  no  obligation  to  live  with  an 
imagination  ever  haunted  by  mortality ;  to  deem  every  enjoy- 
ment dangerous,  lest  it  cheat  the  heart  into  a  happy  repose 
upon  the  present,  and  every  pursuit  a  snare,  which  fairly 
embarks  the  affections  upon  this  world ;  to  consider  all 
things  here  devoid  of  any  good  purpose  except  to  tempt  us. 
The  theory  which  crowds  this  life  with  trials,  and  the  other 
with  rewards,  which  brightens  the  future  only  by  blackening 
the  present,  which  supposes  that  the  only  proper  office  of 
our  residence  here  is  to  keep  up  one  prolonged  meditation 
on  the  hereafter,  is  a  mere  burlesque  of  nature  and  the  gos- 
pel. Futurity  is  not  to  mar,  but  to  mend,  our  activity ;  and 
earth  is  not  given  that  we  may  win  the  reversion  of  heaven, 
so  much  as  heaven  revealed  to  ennoble  our  tenure  of  earth. 
I  know  of  no  peculiar  preparation  for  immortality  beyond 
the  faithful  performance  of  the  best  functions  of  mortal  life ; 
and  if  it  were  not  that  these  will  be  more  wisely  discharged, 
and  the  attendant  blessings  more  truly  felt,  by  those  who 
remember  the  sadder  conditions  of  our  lot  than  by  those 
who  forget  them,  there  would  be  no  reason  why  they  should 
ever  appear  before  the  thoughts.  But  they  are  facts,  solemn 
and  inevitable  facts,  which  come  with  least  crushing  power 
on  those  who  see  them  from  afar,  and  become  reconciled  to 
them,  and  even  fill  them  by  forethought  with  peaceful  sug- 
gestion. The  sense  of  their  possibility  breaks  through  the 
superficial  crust  of  life,  and  stirs  up  the  deeper  affections  of 
our  nature.  It  refines  the  sacredness  of  every  human  tie : 
it  dignifies  the  claims  of  duty :  it  freshens  the  emotions  of 
conscience  :  it  gives  promptitude  to  the  efforts  of  sympathy ; 
and  elevates  the  whole  attitude  of  life. 

But,  above  all,  we  pay  the  fitting  worship  of  the  season, 
when  we  greet  its  peculiar  ills  in  the  spirit  of  humanity/; 
when  we  think,  of  them,  not  simply  as  they  come  from  God, 
and  may  come  to  ourselves,  but  as  they  actually  do  befall 


174  WINTER   WORSHIP. 

our  neighbors  and  fellow-men.  It  were  selfish  to  gather 
round  our  firesides,  and  circulate  the  laugh  of  cheerfulness 
and  health,  without  a  thought  or  deed  of  pity  for  the  poor 
sufferers  that  struggle  with  the  winter  storms  of  nature  or  of 
life.  Who  can  help  looking  at  this  season  with  a  more  con- 
siderate and  reverential  eye  upon  the  old  man,  to  think 
where  he  may  be  ?  Year  after  year  he  has  been  shaken  by 
the  December  winds,  but  not  yet  shaken  to  his  fall :  deeper 
and  deeper  the  returning  frost  has  crept  into  his  nature; 
and  will  it  reach  the  life-stream  now  ?  You  watch  him  as 
you  would  the  last  pendulous  leaf  of  the  forest,  still  held  by 
some  capricious  fibre,  that  refuses  perhaps  to  part  with  it  to 
the  storm,  and  then  drops  it  slowly  through  the  still  air. 
You  gaze  at  him  as  he  stands  before  you,  and  wonder  that 
you  can  ever  do  so  without  awe ;  for  the  visible  margin  of 
existence  crumbles  beneath  him,  and  he  slips  into  the  unfath- 
omable. And  as  the  tempest  wakes  us  on  our  pillow,  it  is 
but  common  justice  to  our  human  heart,  to  send  out  a 
thought  over  the  cold  and  vexed  sea  in  search  of  the  poor 
mariner  that  buffets  with  the  night,  or  perhaps  sinks  in  that 
most  lonely  of  deaths,  between  the  black  heavens  that  pelt 
him  from  above  and  the  insatiable  waste  that  swallows  him 
below.  Nor  will  generous  and  faithful  souls  forget  the 
dingy  cellar  or  the  crowded  hovel,  where  in  a  neighboring 
street  the  fevered  sufferer  lies,  and  the  ravings  of  delirium 
and  the  sport  of  children  are  heard  together,  or  life  is  ebbing 
away  in  consumption,  hurried  to  its  close  by  the  chill  breath 
of  poverty  and  winter.  Oh  could  we  but  see  the  dread  gripe 
of  want  and  disease  upon  hundreds  of  this  community  at 
this  moment,  andjiear  the  cries  of  hungry  children  and  the 
moans  of  untended  sickness,  the  only  difficulty  would  be, 
not  to  stimulate  our  generosity  to  do  enough,  but  to  per- 
suade it  to  work  out  its  good  with  patience  and  with 
wisdom  ! 

And  here  indeed  is  a  difficulty,  which  every  considerate 
mind  will  feel  to  be  grave,  and  even  terrible.     The  multi- 


WINTER    WORSHIP.  175 

tude  of  miseries  spread  around  us  make  humanity  easy,  a 
wise  direction  of  its  impulses,  most  difficult ;  the  very  spec- 
tacle which  gives  to  benevolence  its  intensity,  throws  it  ako 
into  despair.  The  perplexity  arises  partly  from  the  state  of 
society  in  which  we  live ;  from  relations  among  its  several 
classes  altogether  new,  and  rendering  the  ancient  and  tra- 
ditional methods  of  doing  good  in  a  great  degree  inappli- 
cable. A  slave-owning  or  feudal  community,  by  killing  out 
from  the  great  mass  of  men  every  thing  above  the  rank  of 
hunger,  reduces  the  office  of  compassion  within  a  very 
narrow  compass :  and  the  dish  from  the  rich  man's  table,  or 
the  garment  from  his  wardrobe,  sent  as  to  the  domestic  ani- 
mals of  his  estate,  to  stop  their  cries  and  soothe  them  to 
sleep,  are  the  only  boons  that  are  required,  or  possibly  that 
can  be  given  without  peril  of  social  revolution.  Happily, 
—  yet  not  without  much  unhappiness  too,  —  such  revolution 
is  now  effected  or  in  progress ;  greatly  through  the  influence 
of  that  Christianity,  which  pronounces  all  to  be  children  of 
One  who  is  "no  respecter  of  persons;"  and  assures  us  that 
whenever  we  say,  "  Be  thou  warmed  and  filled,"  it  is  no 
other  than  "  a  brother  or  sister "  that  comes  before  us 
"  naked  and  destitute  of  daily  food."  Our  current  notions 
of  benevolence  have  descended  to  us  from  the  recent  times 
of  feudalism :  yet  we  are  conscious  that  they  do  not  come 
up  to  the  higher  demands  which  have  arisen,  or  adapt  them- 
selves to  the  new  intellectual  and  moral  wants  comprised  in 
any  Christian  estimate  of  the  poor  of  this  world.  The  ease 
of  ancient  condescension  is  gone :  the  graceful  recognition 
of  human  brotherhood  is  not  attained.  To  aim  at  making 
men  like  ourselves  into  creatures  with  enough  to  eat, — 
though  a  thing  unrealized  as  yet,  —  is  felt  to  be  insufficient ; 
and  how  to  raise  them  into  the  likeness  of  the  children  of  God 
we  cannot  tell,  —  the  very  notion  receiving  at  present  but  a 
timid  acknowledgment.  This,  however,  if  we  are  in  earnest, 
is  but  a  temporary  difficulty,  attending  on  a  state  of  hesi- 
tancy and  transition.  Let  the  mind  fairly  emancipate  itself 
from  that  debasing  valuation  of  a  human  being  which  the 


176  WINTER   WORSHIP. 

mere  sentiments  of  property  would  dictate ;  —  trust  itself, 
with  high  faith,  to  the  equalizing  spirit  of  Christian  piety 
and  hope ;  and  in  paying,  to  all,  the  reverence  due  to  an 
immortal,  it  will  attain  to  the  freedom  and  power  of  a  divine 
love :  it  will  speak  to  sorrow  with  the  voice  of  another 
Christ,  and  restore  his  holiest  miracles  of  mercy.  Who  can 
doubt  that,  were  his  spirit  here,  the  work  of  good  need  not 
despair  ? 

But,  for  want  of  this  spirit  in  perpetuity,  another  obstacle 
obstructs  the  course  of  bewildered  charity.  We  form  our 
good  intentions  too  late :  and  while  benevolence,  to  be  suc- 
cessful, must  work  in  the  way  of  prevention  and  anticipation, 
—  at  the  very  least  putting  resolutely  down  each  confused 
and  hurtful  thing  as  it  appears,  —  men  rarely  bestir  them- 
selves till  evils  get  ahead,  and  by  no  effort  can  well  be  over- 
taken. The  physical,  moral  and  religious  condition  of  the 
poor,  which  in  our  days  begins  to  excite  so  much  attention, 
should  have  been  studied  thus  half  a  century  ago ;  easy  in 
comparison  had  it  then  been  to  prevent  the  ills  which  now 
we  know  not  how  to  cure.  We  permit  a  generation  to 
grow  up  neglected,  with  habits  a  grade  below  their  fathers' ; 
and  then  consider  how  they  may  be  reclaimed.  We  suffer 
a  new  manufacture  to  start  into  existence,  and  seize,  witli 
the  hands  of  a  needy  giant,  on  infant  labor;  and  when  it 
has  appropriated  a  generation  to  itself,  and  boldly  insists 
on  its  prescriptive  right  to  be  fed  for  ever  from  the  same 
life-blood  of  our  humanity,  we  look  round  on  the  degenerate 
bodies  and  stunted  minds  of  an  enormous  population,  and 
begin  to  cry  out  for  an  efficient  public  education,  against 
which  the  immediate  physical  interests  of  poor  as  well  as 
rich  are  now  combined.  The  providence  of  God  is  retribu- 
tory :  and  too  often  it  happens  that  the  sinful  negligence  of 
one  age  cannot  be  repaired  by  the  penitent  benevolence  of 
many  :  the  unpaid  debt  accumulates  its  interest,  till  discharge 
becomes  impossible :  misery  grows  impatient  and  clamor- 
ous ;  and  repays  at  length  in  fury  the  injuries  inflicted  by 
ancient  wantonness  and  neglect.     Neither  in  communities, 


WINTER   WORSHIP.  177 

nor  in  individuals,  does  God  give  encouragement  to  death- 
bed repentance :  and  societies  that  trust  to  it  shall  find 
themselves,  after  short  delay,  under  the  lash  of  demons  and 
near  the  seat  of  hell.  Let  them  be  timely  wise,  and  main- 
tain the  vigils  of  benevolence,  while  the  accepted  hour 
remains. 

Amid  all  controversies  respecting  the  quarter  from  which 
the  assault  on  the  evils  of  indigence  is  best  commenced, 
whether  the  physical  wants  should  be  remedied  through  the 
moral,  or  the  moral  through  the  physical,  whether  most  is 
to  be  hoped  for  from  legislative  measures,  or  from  individual 
efforts,  one  principle  may  be  regarded  as  certain,  and,  con- 
sidering the  tendencies  of  our  age,  not  unseasonable.  You 
cannot  mechanize  benevolence :  you  cannot  put  Christian 
love  into  an  act  of  Parliament  or  a  subscription  list :  and 
however  necessary  may  be  the  remedial  action  of  laws  and 
institutions,  on  account  of  the  comprehensive  scale  of  their 
operation,  the  ties  between  man  and  man  can  be  drawn 
closer  only  by  personal  agency.  Not  one  new  sympathy 
can  arise  but  by  the  contact  between  mind  and  mind  :  in 
the  spiritual  world  life  is  born  only  of  life :  nor  is  any 
abrogation  possible  of  that  law  of  God  which  requires  that 
we  seek  whatever  we  would  save.  The  good  comfort  which 
with  willing  soul  we  tender  to  each  other  is  of  all  things 
most  precious  to  the  heart.  As  the  blow  of  calamity  falls 
with  three-fold  weight  when  it  descends  from  the  injustice 
of  men,  so  the  deliverance  brought  by  their  pity  and  af- 
fection is  a  blessing  infinitely  multiplied.  The  one  poisons 
and  prevents  our  submission,  as  to  a  will  of  God ;  the  other 
sweetens  and  elevates  our  gratitude  to  him :  the  one  cancels, 
the  other  creates,  what  is  most  divine  in  the  dispensation. 
Only  so  far  as  there  is  a  ''charity"  that  "never  faileth" 
from  the  souls  of  men,  can  they  live  in  communion  together 
on  this  earth:  and  from  Christendom  every  "faith"  shall 
be  cast  out  as  a  dead  heathenism,  except  such  as  "  worketh 

by  love." 
^  12 


XIX. 

THE  GREAT  YEAR  OF  PROVIDENCE. 


2  Peter  hi.  4. 

where  is  the  promise  of  his  coming  ?  for,  since  the  fathers  fell 
asleep,  all  things  continue  as  they  were  from  the  beginning 
of  the  creation. 

Christ  quitted  the  world  in  benediction,  and  left  upon  it 
a  legacy  of  inextinguishable  hope.  The  first  manifestation 
of  the  hopeful  spirit  of  his  religion  was  in  the  expectation, 
confidently  held  by  the  Apostles  and  their  followers,  that 
within  "  that  generation  "  he  would  return  from  heaven  in 
triumph,  gather  together  a  faithful  community,  exterminate 
the  ills  of  human  life,  and  become  monarch  over  a  renovated 
and  immortal  world.  Sufferers  of  every  class  (and  the 
church  had  mercy  for  them  all)  laid  this  hope  to  heart,  and 
stood  silent  beneath  scorn  and  persecution,  believing  that 
the  lashes  of  oppression  were  numbered  now.  As  the  years 
passed  on,  and  the  outer  limits  of  the  generation  were  ap- 
proached, the  flush  of  expectation  became  more  intense. 
One  after  another  the  Apostles  dropped  off,  without  wit- 
nessing the  desire  of  their  eyes ;  till  at  last  the  protracted 
life  of  John  became  the  solitary  and  fragile  thread  on  which 
this  splendid  anticipation  hung.  He  too  died,  and  Jesus 
had  not  returned :  and  the  church,  unwilling  to  confess  its 
disappointment,  extended  the  term  of  hope  by  a  liberal  con- 
struction of  the  promise.  Here  and  there  among  the  com- 
munities of  disciples  there  lingered  a  few  aged  men,  whose 
life  reached  back  to  the  years  of  Christ's  ministry :  and  till 
they  were  gone,  it  was  not  too  late  for  the  Son  of  Man  to 


THE  GREAT  YEAR  OF  PROVIDENCE.       179 

come.  Expectation  became  more  anxious  and  feverish  every 
year:  passing  events  Vi^ere  perverted  into  auguries  of  its 
impending  realization  :  the  rout  of  an  army,  the  incursion 
of  a  new  invader,  the  rumor  of  an  earthquake,  the  blaze  of 
a  meteor  by  night,  or  a  stroke  of  lightning  upon  a  Pagan 
shrine,  was  caught  at  with  breathless  eagerness,  and  watched 
as  a  herald  to  the  last  act  of  human  things.  But  as  storm 
after  storm  passed  off  and  brought  no  change  ;  as  life  after 
life  disappeared,  and  even  rumor  could  find  nowhere  a  sur- 
viving representative  of  Christ's  generation,  hope  fainted 
into  doubt ;  and  despair  broke  loose  and  cried,  "  Where  is 
the  promise  of  his  coming  ?  for  since  the  fathers  fell  asleep, 
all  things  continue  as  they  were  from  the  beginning  of  the 
creation."  No  brilliant  exultation  longer  cheered  the  woes 
of  the  church  and  of  the  world  :  they  fell  back  again  with 
their  dull  weight  upon  the  heart.  The  Christian  mother 
wept  now  for  her  martyred  son,  whom,  in  the  thought  of 
instant  restoration,  she  had  forgot  to  mourn :  the  despised 
teacher  began  to  cower  before  the  heathen's  or  the  Hebrew's 
scorn,  which  he  knew  no  longer  how  to  answer :  and  the 
irons  of  the  Christian  field-slave,  to  which  for  years  his  faith 
had  given  a  farewell  look  each  night  before  he  slept,  grew 
heavy  on  his  limbs  again. 

Almost  eighteen  hundred  years  separate  us  from  the  dis- 
appointment of  this  singular  expectation ;  and  the  calmness 
with  which  we  can  look  back  on  a  scene  so  distant,  enables 
us  to  draw  from  it  a  sacred  lesson  of  Providence.  Well 
might  God  rebuke  and  disappoint  this  affectionate  but  erring 
hope :  for  what,  did  it  assume  ?  —  That  a  few  years'  preach- 
ing of  a  pure  religion  and  the  forcible  enthronement  upon 
earth  of  one  who  had  lived  in  heaven,  were  all  that  was 
necessary  for  perfecting  the  world,  for  driving  sin  and  sor- 
row from  the  hearts  and  homes  of  men,  and  giving  life  its 
final  sanctity.  How  imperfect  was  the  estimate  of  this  re- 
generative work,  which  could  assign  it  to  instruments  so 
inadequate,  and  a  process  so  brief!     God  has  taught  us  now, 


180       THE  GREAT  YEAR  OF  PROVIDENCE. 

that  a  moral  cliange  so  various  and  stupendous,  implying 
the  civilization  of  barbarism,  the  illumination  of  the  ignorant, 
the  rescue  of  the  oppressed,  the  pacification  of  nations,  the 
multiplication  of  Christ's  own  spirit  of  humanity  over  the 
globe,  is  not  to  be  wrought  in  an  hour  by  Omnipotence  it- 
self ;  is  beyond  the  reach  of  any  mechanical  scheme  of  rule, 
though  conducted  by  beings  of  another  world ;  and  must 
wait  on  the  silent  operation  of  those  spiritual  laws  of  the 
human  mind  which  neither  the  individual  nor  the  race  can 
be  permitted  to  outstrip.  We  look  back  over  the  centuries 
by  which  we  have  retired  from  the  fountains  of  our  faith, 
and  learn  how  solemn  is  the  task  of  God's  providence  on 
earth ;  for  he  labors  at  it  still ;  and  though  its  progress  has 
been  visible  to  this  hour,  it  seems  but  starting  on  its  cycle 
yet. 

Who  will  not  confess  a  strong  sympathy  with  the  early 
Christians'  delight,  in  anticipating  certain  great  and  divine 
revolutions  within  their  own  generation  ?  That  human  life 
is  too  short  to  witness  the  fruits  of  its  own  efforts,  that  it 
scatters  in  seed-time,  but  may  not  put  the  sickle  to  its  own 
harvest,  that  its  whole  career  from  infancy  to  age  scarce 
measures  a  solitary  step  in  the  march  of  humanity,  has 
always  been  felt  to  be  an  arrangement  hard  to  bear.  And 
there  is  a  peculiar  fascination  in  the  thought  of  personally 
experiencing  the  realization  of  one's  social  dreams,  of  quick- 
ening a  too  tardy  Providence  to  the  pace  of  our  fleeting 
years,  and  finding  the  race  of  man  give  promise  of  perfection 
during  our  mortal  instead  of  our  immortal  lives.  It  is  the 
severest  and  sublimest  duty  of  philanthropy  to  toil  in  faith 
and  die  in  tears;  to  grapple  with  ills  that  must  survive  it, 
and  may  destroy ;  to  remonstrate  with  oppression,  and  only 
see  its  gripe  tightened  on  its  victim  in  revenge.  The  mis- 
take of  the  early  church  is  not  theirs  alone :  it  is  a  human, 
rather  than  a  theological,  error.  All  men  have  the  prime 
element  of  such  a  superstition  in  themselves ;  an  impatience 
at  the  slow  step  of  advancement,  an  eagerness  for  some  visi- 


THE   GREAT   YEAR    OF    PROVIDENCE.  181 

ble  and  palpable  progress  in  every  thing  which  is  thought 
capable  of  indefinite  improvement.  Such  "  delusion  "  is  the 
only  way  in  which  the  human  soul  can  enter  into  God's 
"  everlasting  now."  Yet,  while  really  springing  from  a 
noble  faith,  it  produces,  in  its  reaction,  many  an  ignoble 
doubt.  This  disposition  looks,  for  example,  at  the  individ- 
ual mind ;  and  seeing  it  become  stationary,  the  dull  slave 
of  habit,  declares  that  it  cannot  be  immortal.  Or  it  con- 
templates the  general  community  of  men  ;  and  imagining 
its  state  little  superior  to  some  former  condition  of  the  world, 
denies  it  the  hope  of  unlimited  amelioration.  This  spirit 
of  despondency  is  especially  liable  to  visit  us,  when  we  stand 
at  one  of  the  pauses  of  our  time,  —  at  the  end  of  a  season, 
of  a  year,  of  a  life,  —  of  any  unit  that  has  had  a  predecessor, 
and  will  have  a  successor,  just  like  itself :  still  more  perhaps, 
when  we  review  the  progress  (ever  small  compared  with 
our  desires)  of  some  benevolent  work,*  to  which,  from  its 
magnitude  and  character,  we  can  see  no  definite  termination. 
The  retrospect  of  a  few  years  often  seems  to  exhibit  to  us 
a  sameness  the  most  depressing ;  to  show  us  how  little  we 
have  done;  to  persuade  us  that,  —  as  if  in  rebuke  of  our 
hopes,  —  "all  things  continue  as  they  were,"  and  no  advent 
of  a  better  life  is  heralded  as  yet.  The  same  evils  which 
met  our  eye  and  our  pity  of  old,  encounter  us  this  day  :  and 
if  in  any  instance  they  have  been  cancelled,  others,  not  less 
frightful,  seem  ever  ready  to  rush  up  into  their  place  :  so  that, 
in  turning  to  the  future,  no  visible  end  appears  to  the  sad- 
dening task  of  Christian  mercy.  Under  the  influence  of 
this  thought,  the  mind  is  haunted  and  harassed  by  the 
image  of  all  things  circulating ;  whirling  in  mysterious  self- 
repetition  ;  looking  in  upon  us  with  the  fixed  full  eye  of  an 
ancient  fatalism.  And  we  are  deluded  into  the  fear  that 
nothing  is  ever  to  be  better ;  that  our  faith  in  the  progress 
of  our  religion  and  our  kind  must  be  dragged  into  the  vortex 

*  This  Discourse  was  preached  in  behalf  of  the  London  Domestic 
Mission,  April,  1841. 


182      THE  GREAT  YEAH  OF  PROVIDENCE. 

of  a  wearisome  periodicity,  and  expire  in  the  exclamation, 
"Where  is  the  promise  of  his  coming?  for  since  the  fathers 
fell  asleep,  all  things  continue  as  they  were  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  creation." 

This  distressing  impression  might  be  relieved,  if  we 
could  only  discriminate,  by  any  rule,  between  those  series 
of  events  which  are  periodical,  and  those  which  are  eternal ; 
—  between  those  changes  in  the  moral  world  which  visibly 
complete  themselves,  and  those  which  at  least  may  be  in- 
terminable. Change  of  some  kind  is  the  law  of  the  universe : 
every  thing  which  God  does  is  progressive  :  and  the  present 
question  is,  whether  any  of  his  progressions  having  reference 
to  human  beings  appear  to  run  on  into  infinitude  ? 

Now  in  seeking  for  an  answer  to  this  question,  we  are  en- 
countered by  an  apparent  law  of  the  organized,  or  at  all 
events  of  the  sentient  creation,  of  a  truly  remarkable  char- 
acter;—  a  law  which,  though  discernible  only  in  fragments 
and  interrupted  by  seeming  exceptions,  holds  with  sufficient 
consistency  to  disclose  the  general  method  of  nature  ;  — 
viz.,  that  in  proportion  to  the  excellence  and  dignity  of 
any  form  of  existence,  is  it  long  in  coming  to  maturity  ; 
that  the  cycles  of  things  are  great,  in  proportion  to  their 
worth.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  there  is  no  other  criterion 
of  the  worth  of  a  being  than  the  magnitude  of  its  capacities, 
and  the  number  of  its  functions. 

In  glancing  our  eye  up  the  chain  of  animal  races,  how- 
ever difficult  it  may  be  to  arrange  them  symmetrically  in 
an  ascending  series,  the  outlines  of  this  law  are  surely  suffi- 
ciently obvious.  The  creatures  which,  by  universal  consent, 
would  be  placed  at  the  lower  end  of  the  scale,  seem  to  come 
into  life  perfect  at  once,  or,  if  they  grow,  to  grow  only  in 
quantity  :  as  if  of  an  existence  so  inferior  no  part  could  be 
spared  as  preface  to  the  rest.  The  perfect  formation  of 
creatures  of  a  superior  order  divides  itself  into  several  dis- 
tinguishable stages  :  and  the  greater  the  number  of  faculties 
and  instincts,  the  longer    is   the   period   set  apart  for  the 


THE  GREAT  YEAR  OF  PROVIDENCE.       183 

process  of  development.  The  lion  has  a  longer  infancy 
than  the  sheep,  and  the  sagacious  elephant  than  either.  The 
human  being,  lord  of  this  lower  world,  is  conducted  to  this 
supremacy  through  a  yet  more  protracted  ascent :  none  of 
the  creatures  that  he  rules  have  an  infancy  so  helpless  or  so 
lasting:  none  furnish  themselves  so  slowly  with  the  knowl- 
edge needful  for  self-subsistence  :  —  as  if  to  him  time  were 
no  object,  and  no  elaboration  of  growth  were  too  great  for 
his  futurity. 

Compare  also  the  different  faculties  and  feelings  of  the 
individual  human  mind.  You  find  them  appear  in  the 
order  of  their  excellence  ;  the  noblest  approaching  their  ma- 
turity the  last.  Sensation,  which  belongs  to  man  in  common 
with  all  other  sentient  beings,  is  the  endowment  of  his 
earliest  days.  Memory,  which  simply  prevents  experience 
from  perishing,  which  furnishes  language  to  the  lips,  and 
preserves  the  materials  of  the  past  for  future  treatment  by 
the  mind,  ripens  next.  The  understanding,  which  makes  in- 
cursions and  wins  trophies  in  the  field  of  abstract  truth,  which 
devises  measures  for  the  dimensions  of  space  and  the  suc- 
cessions of  time  and  the  great  physical  movements  that 
circulate  within  them,  is  of  later  origin :  while  the  great 
inventive  power  which  distinguishes  ail  genius,  which  seems 
to  sympathize  with  the  devising  spirit  of  the  Artificer  of 
things,  and  apprehend  by  natural  afiinity  the  most  subtle 
relations  he  has  established,  and  anticipate  by  mysterious 
intimacy  the  future  secrets  of  nature,  and  from  old  and 
gross  ingredients  create  the  useful,  the  beautiful,  the  true, 
is  the  last  as  it  is  the  rarest  and  most  glorious  of  intellectual 
gifts.  And  the  moral  powers,  —  so  far  as  they  can  be  re- 
garded separately  from  these,  —  are  seen  and  felt  expanding 
later  still.  The  true  appreciation  of  action  and  character, 
the  faithful  and  impartial  love  of  whatever  things  are  pure 
and  good,  the  correct  and  profound  estimate  of  life,  the 
serenest  spirit  of  duty  and  of  faith,  are  scarcely  found  till 
most  of  the  lessons  of  our  mortal  state  have  been  read,  and 


184      THE  GREAT  YEAR  OF  PROVIDENCE. 

the  soul  has  caught  some  snatches  of  inspiration  from  the 
"still  sad  music  of  humanity."  We  may  even  say,  that 
perhaps  not  all  our  faculties  develop  themselves  here ;  and 
whole  classes  of  emotions  and  conceptions  may  wait  to  be 
born  beneath  other  influences.  Certain  at  least  it  is,  that 
one  who  dies  in  infancy  can  have  little  idea  of  any  thing 
beyond  sensation ;  th.it  one  who  falls  in  childhood  can- 
not know  the  toils  and  triumphs  of  the  pure  reason ; 
that  one  who  dies  in  youth  has  not  yet  learned  the  sense 
of  power  which  belongs  to  the  practised  exercise  of  crea- 
tive thought,  and  the  sacred  peace  of  disinterested  duty 
long  tried  in  trembling  and  in  tears.  Certain  too  it  is, 
that  to  the  open  mind  fi-esh  gleams  enter  to  the  last; 
strange  stirrings  of  diviner  sympathies ;  waves  of  thin  trans- 
parent light  flitting  through  the  spaces  of  the  aged  mind, 
like  the  aurora  of  the  north  across  the  wintry  sky.  Even 
therefore  when  "  maturity  "  has  been  passed,  we  may  die, 
peradventure,  ignorant  of  the  secret  fountains  of  illumina- 
tion that  may  be  sequestered  in  the  recesses  of  our  nature  : 
and  when  we  depart  at  three-score  years  and  ten,  our 
experience  may  be  as  truly  imperfect,  —  as  much  a  mere 
fragment,  —  as  when  we  lapse  in  a  mortality  falsely  called 
"  premature." 

From  the  individual  mind  turn  to  the  successive  develop- 
ments of  society  at  large ;  and  the  same  law  is  perceptible 
still ;  that  the  superior  attributes  are  of  the  longest  growth. 
The  most  rapid  of  social  changes  is  found  in  the  progress  of 
material  civilization ;  and  certainly  it  is  the  least  dignified 
element  in  the  general  advancement,  though  essential  to  the 
rest.  Of  the  rapidity  with  which  a  new  art  may  be  per- 
fected, new  channels  of  commerce  filled,  a  new  manufacture 
start  into  gigantic  existence,  no  age  or  country  affords  more 
striking  instances  than  our  own.  Let  gain  supply  the  ade- 
quate motive ;  and  a  few  years  suffice  to  reclaim  the  wilder- 
ness, and  make  the  harvest  wave  where  before  the  forest 
rose  ;  or  to  cover  the  soil  with  cities,  busy  with  congregated 


THE  GREAT  YEAR  OF  PROVIDENCE.       185 

labor ;  or  to  enliven  the  sea  with  traffic,  where  none  had 
disturbed  its  solitudes  before.  How  much  longer  does  it 
require  to  penetrate  the  mass  of  a  community  with  knowl- 
edge ;  to  fill  a  land  with  intelligence,  than  to  throng  it  with 
life !  Even  in  the  long  lives  of  nations,  few  have  arrived  at 
that  season,  when  the  demand  for  general  instruction  natu- 
rally appears,  and  the  truth  goes  forth,  that  the  people  are 
not  a  herd  of  mere  animals  or  instruments  of  mere  wealth, 
but  beings  of  rational  nature,  who  have  a  right  to  their  pow- 
ers of  thought :  and  even  where  this  demand  has  arisen, 
scarce  a  people  yet  has  lived  long  enough  to  answer  it.  The 
morality  of  a  community  cannot  be  matured  till  its  intelli- 
gence is  unfolded :  in  societies,  as  in  individuals,  character 
cannot  set,  till  reason  has  blossomed.  The  pure  tastes  of 
virtue  cannot  be  looked  for  in  those  who  have  never  been  led 
beyond  their  senses ;  nor  even  a  wise  self-interest  be  ex- 
pected, where  no  habits  of  foresight  have  been  acquired,  and 
the  intellect  has  not  been  taught  to  respect  the  future.  I 
do  not  even  suppose  that  the  moral  amelioration  of  a  coun- 
try immediately  follows  on  the  "  diffusion  of  knowledge." 
On  the  spread  of  education  it  may  :  but  it  must  be  an  edu- 
cation which  comprises  a  principle  of  sympathy  as  well  as 
of  instruction ;  which  has  a  discipline  for  the  heart  as  well 
as  for  the  understanding ;  which  remembers  the  composite 
structure  of  our  nature,  and  applies  knowledge  to  no  more 
than  its  proper  office  of  enlightening  the  reason,  and  sum- 
mons up  feelings  of  right  as  the  fit  antagonists  to  passions 
that  tend  to  wrong.  But  slower  still  than  this  is  the  relig- 
ious civilization  of  a  country:  so  that  the  history  of  a  re- 
ligion is  usually  a  much  longer  and  vaster  one  than  the 
history  of  any  people ;  a  faith  embracing  many  nations, 
but  no  nation  many  faiths.  The  most  sacred  ideas  attach 
themselves  with  the  greatest  tenacity  to  the  mind ;  entwine 
themselves  with  the  principles  of  action  and  forms  of  the 
affections ;  and  being  most  distrustful  of  change,  are  most 
tardy  of  improvement.      The  history  of  the  past  confirms 


186      THE  GREAT  YEAR  OF  PROVIDENCE. 

these  positions.  Those  countries  whose  progress  has  been 
the  noblest  and  most  durable,  have  attained  their  eminence 
by  slow  and  imperceptible  steps.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  oriental  tribes  that  have  rushed  into  sudden  splendor, 
have  either  stopped  with  the  material  or  at  best  the  intel- 
lectual form  of  greatness,  without  rising  into  the  moral  and 
spiritual :  or  else,  their  religion,  resting  on  no  adequate  sub- 
strata of  the  lower  ingredients  of  civilization,  wanted  an 
element  of  stability  ;  manifesting  the  nomadic  strength  for 
conquest  and  weakness  for  repose  ;  and  becoming  enervated 
by  the  arts  and  opulence  and  science  which  it  first  called 
into  existence,  and  then  could  not  command. 

Wherever  we  look  then,  —  to  the  chain  of  animal  exist- 
ence, to  the  faculties  of  the  individual  mind,  or  the  stages 
of  collective  society,  —  we  discover  distinct  traces  of  the 
same  general  law ;  that  in  proportion  to  the  excellence  of 
any  form  of  being,  is  its  progress  tardy  and  its  cycle  vast. 
Contract  the  limits  of  any  nature,  and  its  changes  become 
quick  and  visible :  enlarge  them,  and  its  vibrations  become 
slow  and  majestic.  On  the  surface  of  a  pool,  the  wind 
raises  rapid  billows  that  would  agitate  an  insect ;  on  the 
ocean,  mighty  oscillations  that  give  a  frigate  time  to  think. 
"  Like  tide  there  is  in  the  affairs  of  men  : "  and  if  we  think 
nobly  of  the  great  element  on  which  it  rides,  if  we  take 
humanity  to  be  no  foul  and  shallow  marsh,  but  a  boundless 
and  unfathomable  deep,  we  shall  not  marvel  that  our  little 
life  scarce  feels  its  deliberate  and  solemn  sweep.  Why, 
even  in  physical  nature,  the  more  complex  and  extensive 
any  system  of  bodies  is,  the  longer  is  the  period  of  its  revo- 
lution, and  the  less  perceptible  its  velocity  as  a  whole.  Our 
single  earth,  revolving  round  the  sun,  soon  comes  to  the 
point  from  which  it  started  :  add  the  moon  to  it,  and  the 
three  orbs  demand  a  greatly  increased  duration  to  return 
to  the  same  relative  position  :  collect  the  planets  into  a 
group,  and  their  cycle  of  return  when  every  perturba- 
tion shall  have  hud  its  revolution,  and  they  shall  look  at 


THE  GREAT  YEAR  OF  PROVIDENCE.      187 

each  other  as  they  did  at  first,  becomes  immense,  and, 
in  our  poor  conceptions,  almost  coincides  with  eternity 
itself :  and  the  solar  system,  as  a  whole,  is  travelling  on  all 
the  while,  astronomers  assure  us,  towards  the  constellation 
Hercules.  Such  are  the  natural  pei4ods  of  the  moral  world, 
in  proportion  to  the  grandeur  of  its  parts  and  relations; 
such,  the  tendencies  of  man  and  society,  considered  as  a 
complex  whole  :  however  insensible  the  parallax  of  their 
progression,  they  doubtless  gravitate  incessantly  to  some 
distant  constellation  in  the  universe  of  brilliant  possibilities, 
—  to  some  space  in  the  future  where  dwell  and  move  forms 
of  power  and  of  good  which  it  is  no  fable  to  believe  gigan- 
tic and  godlike. 

In  proportion  then  as  we  think  well  of  our  nature  and  of 
our  kind  ;  in  proportion  as  we  estimate  worthily  the  task 
of  Providence  in  ripening  a  world  of  souls,  shall  we  be 
reconciled  to  the  tardy  and  interrupted  steps  by  which  the 
work  proceeds.  We  shall  be  content  and  trustful,  though 
our  personal  portion  of  the  work,  and  even  the  sum  of  our 
combined  endeavors  while  we  live,  should  be  inconspicu- 
ously small.  Have  you  resolved,  as  much  as  in  you  lies,  to 
lessen  the  number  of  those  who,  in  this  metropolis  of  the 
charities,  have  none  to  help  them,  or  lift  them  from  the 
darkness  wherein  they  exist  and  perish  unseen  ?  It  is  good. 
Only  remember,  that  if  the  ministry,  which  thus  dives  into 
the  recesses  of  human  wretchedness,  and  carries  a  healing 
pity  to  the  body  and  the  soul,  which  speaks  to  tempted, 
fallen,  stricken  men,  from  a  heart  that  feels  their  struggle 
terrible,  yet  believes  the  conquest  possible,  be  really  right 
and  Christian,  then  its  slowness  is  but  the  attendant  and 
symptom  of  its  worth  :  and  to  despond  because  a  few  years' 
labor  exhibits  no  large  and  deep  impression  made  on  the 
wickedness  and  miseries  of  this  great  city,  would  be  to 
slight  the  work  and  forget  its  dignity.  When  London, 
mother  of  mighty  things,  after  the  travail  of  centuries, 
brings  forth  woes,  how  can  they  be  other  than  giant  wOes, 


188      THE  GREAT  YEAR  OF  PROVIDENCE. 

which  no  faint  hope,  no  puny  courage,  but  only  the  enter- 
prise of  high  faith,  can  manacle  and  lay  low  ?  Surely  it  is 
an  unworthy  proposal  which  we  sometimes  hear  respectiifg 
this  and  other  deputed  ministries  of  good,  *'  Well,  it  is  a 
doubtful  experiment,  bi*t  let  us  try  it  for  a  few  years."  If, 
indeed,  this  means  that,  in  case  of  too  small  a  measure  of 
su<5cess,  we  are  to  do  something  more  and  greater ;  that  we 
must  be  content  with  no  niggardly  and  unproductive  opera- 
fion,  but  recognize  in  scanty  results  a  call  to  stronger  efforts  ; 
that,  failing  a  delegated  ministry,  we  will  go  forth  ourselves 
into  the  places  of  want  and  sin,  and  make  aggression  on 
them  with  a  mercy  that  can  wait  no  more  ;  ifi  this  sense, 
let  the  mission  pass  for  a  temporary  trial.  But  if  it  be 
meant  that,  disappointed  in  our  hopes,  we  are  to  give  up 
all  and  do  nothing  /  that,  having  once  set  plainly  before  our 
face  the  beseeching  looks  of  wounded  and  bleeding  human- 
ity stretched  upon  our  path,  we  are  to  "  pass  by  on  the 
other  side,"  thinking  it  enough  to  have  "  come  and  seen 
where  it  was,"  —  then  I  must  say  that  any  work,  under- 
taken in  this  spirit,  has  failed  already.  For  my  own  part, 
I  should  say  that  were  we  even  to  make  no  visible  progress, 
wei-e  we  able  to  beat  back  the  ills  with  which  we  contend 
by  not  one  hair's  breadth  ;  —  nay,  were  they  to  be  seen 
actually  advancing  on  us,  still  no  retreat,  but  only  the  more 
strenuous  aggression,  would  be  admissible.  For  what  pur- 
pose can  any  Christian  say  that  he  is  here  in  life,  with  his 
divine  intimation  of  what  ought  to  be,  and  his  sorrowing 
perception  of  what  is,  if  not  to  put  forth  a  perpetual 
endeavor  against  the  downward  gravitation  of  his  own 
and  others'  nature?  And  if  in  the  conquest  of  evil  God 
can  engage  himself  eternally,  is  it  not  a  small  thing  for  us 
to  yield  up  to  the  struggle  our  three-score  years  and  ten  ? 
Whatever  difficulties  may  baffle  us,  whatever  defeat  await 
us,  it  is  our  business  to  live  with  resistance  in  our  will,  and 
die  with  protest  on  our  lips,  and  make  our  whole  existence, 
not  only  in  desire  and  prayer,  but  in  resolve,  in  speech,  in 


THE  GREAT  YEAR  OF  PROVIDENCE.       189 

act,  a  remonstrance  against  whatever  hurts  and  destroys  in 
all  the  earth.  Did  we  give  heed  to  the  counsels  of  passive- 
ness  and  despondency,  our  Christendom,  faithless  to  the 
trust  consigned  to  it  by  Heaven,  must  perish  by  the  forces 
to  which  it  has  succumbed.  For,  between  the  Christian 
faith,  teaching  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  immortality 
of  men,  —  between  this  and  the  degradation  of  large  por- 
tions of  the  human  family,  there  is  an  irreconcilable  vari- 
ance, an  internecine  war,  to  be  interrupted  by  no  parley," 
and  mitigated  by  no  quarter :  and  if  faith  gives  up  its 
aggression  upon  the  evil,  the  evil  must  destroy  the  faith. 
If  the  world  were  all  a  slave-market  or  a  gin-palace,  what 
possible  place  could  such  a  thing  as  the  Christian  religion 
find  therein  ?  Who,  amid  a  carnival  of  sin,  could  believe  in 
any  deathless  sanctity?  or,  through  the  steams  of  a  besotted 
earth,  discern  the  pure  light  of  an  overarching  heaven  ?  or, 
through  the  moans  and  dumb  anguish  of  a  race,  send  up  a 
hymn  of  praise  to  the  All-merciful?  And  are  there  not 
thousands  already,  so  environed  and  shut  in,  that  their 
world  is  little  else  than  this  ?  In  proportion  as  this  num- 
ber is  permitted  to  increase,  does  Christianity  lose  its  evi- 
dence and  become  impossible.  Sensualism  and  sin  cannot 
abide  the  clear  angelic  look  of  Christian  faith  ;  but  if  once 
that  serene  eye  becomes  confused  and  droops  abashed,  the 
foe  starts  up  in  demoniac  triumph,  and  proclaims  man  to  be 
a  brute,  and  earth  a  grave. 

As  we  love  then  the  religion  by  which  we  live,  let  us  give 
no  heed  to  doubt  and  fear.  In  the  spirit  of  hope  and  firm 
endeavor  let  us  go  forward  with  the  work  we  have  begun ; 
undismayed  by  difliiculties  which  God  permits  us  to  hold  in 
check,  but  not  to  vanquish ;  and  stipulating  for  no  rewards 
•of  large  success  as  the  conditions  of  our  constancy  of  ser- 
vice. Our  reliance  for  good  results,  and  our  consolation 
under  their  postponement,  is  in  the  essentially  religious  ele- 
ments of  this  ministry :  were  its  methods  purely  economic, 
addressing  themselves  exclusively  to  the  bodily  wants  of  its 


190       THE  GREAT  YEAR  OF  PROVIDENCE. 

objects ;  or  intellectual,  working  at  their  self-interest  and 
self-will,  —  I  for  one  should  despair  of  any  return  worthy 
of  much  patience.  But  going  forth  as  we  do  with  that  di- 
vine and  penetrative  religion,  to  whose  subduing  energy  so 
many  centuries  and  nations  have  borne  their  testimony,  and 
continuing  only  that  evangelizing  process,  before  which  so 
much  wretchedness  and  guilt  have  already  yielded,  we  take 
our  appointed  place  in  the  long  history  of  Christianity,  and 
attempt  a  work  for  which,  like  Providence,  we  can  afford  to 
wait.  It  is  human,  indeed,  to  desire  some  rich  success  ;  and 
each  generation  expects  to  gather  and  taste  the  produce  of 
its  own  toil :  but  the  seasons  of  God  are  eternal ;  he  "  giveth 
the  increase,"  not  for  enjoyment  only,  but  for  reproduction; 
and  ripens  secretly,  beneath  the  thick  foliage  of  events, 
many  a  fruit  of  our  moral  tillage,  for  the  sake  of  the  little 
unnoticed  seed,  which,  dropped  on  the  soil  of  his  provi- 
dence, shall  spread  over  a  future  age  the  shelter  of  some 
tree  of  life.  Be  it  ours  in  word  to  proclaim,  in  deed  to 
make  ready,  the  "  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord." 


XX. 

CHRIST  AND   THE   LITTLE   CHILD.  . 


LUKE   XVIII.    17. 

VERILT  I  SAY  UNTO  YOU,    WHOSOEVER    SHALL    NOT   RECEIVE    THE  KINGDOM 
OF   GOD   AS   A   LITTLE   CHILD,    SHALL   IN   NO   WISE   ENTER  THEREIN. 

By  the  kingdom  of  God  was  meant  neither  the  future  state 
of  the  righteous,  nor  the  dominion  of  Christianity  in  the 
world  ;  but  the  personal  reign  of  Messiah  over  a  favored 
and  faithful  people,  on  a  renovated  earth.  The  prospect  of 
this  period  was,  however,  to  the  people  of  Palestine,  nearly 
what  the  hope  of  heaven  is  to  the  Christian  :  —  it  embodied 
all  their  ideas  of  divine  privilege  and  happiness,  and,  coin- 
ciding with  their  conception  of  religious  existence,  became 
their  great  symbol,  by  which  to  express  the  most  blessed 
system  of  relations  between  the  human  mind  and  God. 
Into  this  system  they  esteemed  it  their  birth-right  to  enter  : 
the  title  and  prerogative  were  in  their  blood,  —  the  blood 
of  patriarchs  whom  they  had  ceased  to  resemble,  and  of 
prophets  of  whose  spirit  they  had  none.  At  the  gate  of  the 
kingdom  they  looked  with  no  meek  and  far-off  desire  ;  they 
knelt  and  knocked  with  no  suppliant  air,  breathing  such 
confessions  of  unworthiness  as  give  security  for  gratitude ; 
but  turned  on  it  the  greedy  eye  of  property,  and  rushed  to 
it  with  intent  to  "  do  what  they  liked  with  their  own,"  — 
so  that  "the  kingdom  of  heaven  suffered  violence,  and  the 
violent  would  take  it  by  force."  Scarcely  were  they  content 
with  the  notion  of  admission  as  its  subjects  ;  they  must  be 
its  lords  and  administrators  too.     For  them,  thought  the 


192  CHRIST   AND   THE    LITTLE   CHILD. 

Pharisees,  were  its  dignities  and  splendors  created,  for  them 
its  patronage  reserved  ;  and  the  glorious  sovereignty  of  God 
was  to  be  not  over  them,  but  by  them  :  so  that,  in  every 
proffer  of  their  services  to  Him,  they  contemplated,  not  the 
humility  of  submission,  but  the  pride  of  command.  Before 
such  it  was  that  Jesus  held  in  his  arms  a  child,  gazing  on' 
his  face,  no  doubt,  in  wonder,  not  without  a  pleased  look  of 
trust,  and  said,  "  Whosoever  shall  not  receive  the  kingdom 
of  God  as  a  little  child,  shall  in  no  wise  enter  therein." 

The  occasion  was  slight  and  transient ;  the  sentiment  is 
profound  and  universal.  In  no  other  way  could  our  Lord 
have  made  the  irreligion  of  the  Pharisees'  temper  more 
obvious,  because  nowhere  could  he  have  found  a  more  genu- 
ine emblem  of  the  pure  religious  spirit,  than  in  a  child. 
Not,  as  will  hereafter  appear,  because  a  child's  heart  is 
peculiarly  devotional ;  nor  because  the  moral  qualities  of 
early  life  possess  the  romantic  purity  and  perfection  some- 
times ascribed  to  them  ;  much  less  because  maturity  affords 
a  less  fitting  scope  for  the  exercise  of  a  holy  mind  :  but 
because  the  relations  of  infancy  resemble  the  religious  rela- 
tions ;  the  natural  conditions  of  its  existence  are  the  same 
that  are  felt  by  the  devout  heart ;  and  hence,  without  any 
singularity  of  merit,  the  spirit  of  childhood,  acquired  by 
simple  accommodation  to  the  law  of  its  being,  is  a  just  rep- 
resentative of  the  temper  which  devotion  imparts  to  the 
mature.  Let  us  trace  some  of  the  analogies  between  the 
spirit  of  childhood  and  the  spirit  of  religion. 

Religion,  it  is  obvious,  can  have  place  only  in  created  and 
dependent  minds.  God  cannot  be  devout :  and  though  we 
have  a  term,  viz.  "  AoZy,"  applicable,  as  an  epithet  of  moral 
description,  to  him  in  common  with  good  men,  the  word, 
singularly  enough,  expresses,  in  reference  to  the  human 
mind,  precisely  the  only  quality  which  cannot  possibly 
attach  to  the  Divine  ; —  "a  holy  man  "  meaning  one  whose 
excellence  has  a  religious  root,  —  "a  holy  God"  denoting 
the  only  being  in  the  spiritual  universe,  whose  perfections 


CHRIST   AND    THE   LITTLE   CHILD.  193 

are  unsusceptible  of  the  colors  of  religious  emotion.  He 
who  has  no  higher  than  himself  must  be  stranger  to  the 
unspeakable  reverence  that  gazes  upwards  on  a  goodness 
not  its  own :  he  who  is  himself  the  measure  of  all  that  is 
divine  is  unconscious  of  the  presence  of  a  yet  diviner :  and 
though  we  cannot  speak  of  his  moral  attributes,  without 
implying  that  he  respects  and  loves  the  right,  yet  his  vener- 
ating regards  must  look  for  this  great  idea,  not  forth,  as  on 
some  outward  being  who  furnishes  the  conception,  but 
within,  where  alone  is  the  infinitude  that  befits  the  Infinite. 
Yet  it  is  not  strictly  Deity  alone  whose  nature  may  ex- 
clude the  possibilities  of  religion.  This  peculiarity  may 
arise  without  our  seeking  it  at  that  supreme  height.  A 
mind  possessed,  not  of  literal  omniscience,  but  of  power 
simply  equal  to  its  conceptions,  a  mind  absolute  within  its 
own  realm,  and  limited  only  by  its  desires,  would  be  inca- 
pable of  veneration,  because  unconscious  of  a  superior  :  and 
though  he  might  really  live  in  a  narrow  ring  environed  by 
the  immeasurable  deep  of  things,  —  so  long  as  he  mistook 
its  circle  for  the  total  universe,  he  would  feel,  not  as  de- 
pendent, but  as  God, — lord  of  his  little  island  in  the  sea 
of  things,  and  ignorant  of  all  beyond.  Not  till  we  are 
embraced  by  some  necessity,  and  see  its  limits  closing  us  in, 
can  the  opportunity  and  spirit  of  religion  begin.  So  long 
as  self-will  is  the  sole  law,  and  sits  upon  its  throne,  sur- 
rounded by  obedient  servitors,  and  in  unresisted  practice  of 
command,  the  relations  from  which  piety  springs  do  not 
subsist.  The  exercise  of  power  will  not  induce  the  idea  of 
obligation,  or  the  temper  of  submission.  It  is  when  we  are 
struck  down  by  some  blow  that  extorts  the  cry  of  depend- 
ence, when  we  feel  the  pressure  of  foreign  forces  like  a 
weight  of  darkness  on  us,  when  within  us  moves  the  strife 
that  ends  sometimes  in  the  triumphs  of  success,  sometimes 
in  the  collapse  of  weakness,  that  the  heart  acknowledges  a 
relation  to  that  which  is  above,  as  well  as  to  that  which  is 
beneath.     And  even  then,  though  submission  is  clearly  inev- 

13 


194  CHRIST   AND    THE   LITTLE   CHILD. 

it  able,  not  so  are  the  sentiments  of  religion  :  for  there  is 
still  a  question,  submit  with  hate,  or  submit  loith  love?  And 
it  is  the  blessed  peculiarity  of  devotion,  that  it  abdicates 
self-will,  not  sullenly,  but  with  joy,  has  no  enmity  to  the 
power  that  restrains  it,  but  a  reverence  deep  and  tender,  so 
that  to  feel  the  controlling  presence  becomes  the  prime  con- 
dition of  its  peace,  and  to  be  stricken  of  God  and  afflicted 
is  better  than  to  be  left  to  itself,  and  be  at  peace.  "  Let  me 
alone,  and  torment  me  not,"  is  the  cry  of  discontent :  "break 
rae  in  sorrow,  but  depart  not  from  me,"  is  the  prayer  of 
piety.  Such  a  suppliant  has  found  the  force  of  compulsion 
turned  into  the  law  of  duty ;  and,  inverting  its  direction, 
instead  of  crushing  to  the  earth,  it  lifts  him  to  the  skies  :  if 
once  he  said  with  deep  reluctance,  "J^  must,  therefore  I 
will,"  he  has  now  fused  a  divine  element  into  that  bitter 
word,  and  finds  it  a  glad  thing  to  say,  "  I  ought,  therefore  I 
will."  Ought  is  the  heavenly  reading  for  "  7nust.^^  From 
the  iron  sceptre  of  necessity  he  has  forged  a  weapon  of 
ethereal  temper;  wherewith  may  be  won  victories  more 
sublime  than  all  the  achievements  of  physical  omnipotence. 

Self-will  then,  so  far  as  it  opei-ates,  excludes  the  senti- 
ments of  religion ;  while  it  is  of  their  very  essence  to  live 
reverently  and  happily  under  a  law  not  always  coinciding 
with  self-will.  It  is  this  which  presents  us  with  the  first 
analogy  between  the  spirit  of  childhood  and  the  spirit  of 
religion. 

What  indeed  can  be  a  truer  picture  of  man  in  creation, 
than  the  position  of  a  child  in  its  own  home  ?  How  silently, 
yet  how  surely,  does  the  domestic  rule  control  him,  dating 
his  rising  and  his  rest,  his  going  out  and  coming  in,  appor- 
tioning his  duties  and  his  mirth,  ordering  secretly  the  very 
current  of  his  thoughts,  whether  it  sparkle  with  gladness, 
or  overflow  with  tears  !  Yet  how  rarely  has  he  any  painful 
sense  of  the  constraining  force  which  is  every  moment  on 
him !  Hemmed  in  on  every  side  by  a  power  more  vigilant 
than  the  most  jealous  despotism,  yet  look  at  his  open  brow, 


CHRIST   AND    THE   LITTLE   CHILD.  195 

and  say,  whether  creature  ever  was  more  free  ?  And  why  ? 
Not  certainly  because  childish  minds  are  destitute  of  self- 
will  that  would  seduce  them  into  transgression  ;  but  because, 
where  reverence  and  love  make  melody  in  the  heart,  the 
tempter  is  charmed  and  sleeps.  Light  therefore  as  the 
weight  of  the  circumambient  atmosphere  upon  the  body,  - 
is  the  pressure  of  home  duty  upon  the  child  ;  easy  by  th« 
constancy  and  completeness  with  which  it  shuts  him  in; 
inseparable  from  the  vital  elements  of  his  being.  His  life 
is  an  exchange  of  obedience  for  protection  :  he  gives  sub- 
mission, and  is  sheltered.  Folded  in  the  arms  of  an  un- 
speakable affection,  he  is  screened  from  the  anxieties  of 
self-care :  not  yet  is  he  left  alone  upon  the  infinite  plain  of 
existence,  to  choose  a  path  by  the  dim,  sad  lustre  of  his  own 
wisdom,  but  is  led  gently  on  by  the  unextinguished  lamp 
of  a  father's  experience,  and  the  meek  starlight  of  a  mother's 
love.  In  strangeness  and  danger,  how  close  he  keeps  to  the 
hand  that  leads  him !  In  doubt,  how  he  looks  up  to  inter- 
pret the  eye  that  speaks  to  him !  In  loss  and  loneliness, 
with  what  cries  and  tears  he  sits  down  to  lament  his  free- 
dom !  He  asks,  but  claims  nothing  ;  his  momentary  froward- 
ness  is  stilled  perhaps  by  a  mere  word ;  and,  if  not,  yet  his 
spontaneous  return,  after  an  interval,  to  his  accustomed 
ways,  confesses  that  in  the  order  of  obedience  is  the  truest 
liberty. 

In  a  like  free  and  natural  movement  within  the  limits  of 
a  higher  law,  in  like  obedience  refreshing  because  reveren- 
tial, in  like  consciousness  of  a  wiser  and  holier  presence, 
from  whom  we  withhold  nothing,  not  even  ourselves,  con- 
sists the  spirit  of  true  piety :  nor  can  any  dwell  on  earth  or 
in  heaven,  finding  it  a  kingdom  of  God,  but  as  the  loving 
child  dwells  within  his  home.  Unhappily,  this  temper  is 
apt  to  be  worn  away  by  the  hard  attrition  of  maturer  life. 
Our  human  relations  are  then  reversed ;  we  succeed,  in 
natural  course,  to  habits  of  command ;  the  pride  of  power 
spoils  us ;  the  mental  attitudes  of  reverence  become  uneasy  ; 


196  CHKIST   AND    THE   LITTLE   CHILD. 

the  eye  bent  unceasingly  down  on  the  petty  reahn  of  which 
we  are  lords,  omits  to  look  up  on  the  infinite  empire  of 
which  we  are  subjects.  And  thus  might  we  become  shut 
up  in  the  dry  crust  of  our  self-will,  if  no  embassage  of  suf- 
fering descended,,  and  loosed  the  fountain  of  grief.  Then 
the  spirit  of  early  years  returns  upon  good  hearts,  and  they 
become  ashamed,  not  of  their  new  submission  to  the  Great 
Parent,  but  of  their  long  estrangement  from  his  abode.  A 
piety,  like  that  of  Christ,  thus  brings  together  the  character- 
istic affections  of  different  periods  of  life,  and  keeps  fresli 
the  beauty  of  them  all :  it  puts  us  back  to  whatever  is  blessed 
in  childhood,  without  abating  one  glory  of  our  manhood ; 
upon  the  embers  of  age  it  kindles  once  more  the  early  fires 
of  life,  to  send  tlieir  genial  glow  through  the  evening  cham- 
ber of  the  soul,  and  shine  with  playful  and  mellowed  light 
through  its  darkened  windows, — brightest  sign  of  a  cheer- 
ful home  to  the  passer-by  in  storm  and  rain.  By  this  res- 
toration, let  me  repeat  it,  the  religious  mind  loses  no  one 
glory  of  its  manhood  :  it  is  not  a  substitution  of  passive 
meekness  for  active  energy,  of  a  devout  effeminacy  for 
natural  vigor.  For  while  the  habit  of  successful  rule,  tak- 
ing the  lead,  is  apt  to  disqualify  for  submission,  and  render 
the  mind  restive  under  necessity,  there  is  nothing  in  a  deep 
reverence  of  soul  which  encroaches  on  the  capacities  for 
command.  What  was  it  that  armed  the  Maid  of  Orleans 
for  field  and  siege,  and  enabled  her  to  erect  again  the  pros- 
trate courage  of  a  nation  ?  What  was  it  that  endowed  a 
Washington  with  a  power,  in  arms  and  peace,  which  no 
veterans  could  break,  nor  any  rival  supplant?  It  was  this  : 
that  with  them  the  exercise  of  command  was  itself  the 
practice  of  obedience;  —  obedience  to  a  high  faith  within 
the  heart,  —  to  a  venerated  idea  of  duty  and  of  God  ;  and 
authority,  thus  deprived  of  its  imperiousness  and  its  caprice, 
thus  moderated  to  an  inflexible  justice,  and  worn  with  a 
divine  simplicity,  strikes  into  human  observers  an  awe,  a 
delight,  a  trust,  which  are  themselves  the  highest  fruits  of 


CHRIST   AND   THE   LITTLE   CHILD.  197 

power.  When  men  perceive  that  their  very  rulers  are  sus- 
ceptible of  obedience,  and  are  following  the  guidance  of 
reverential  thoughts,  it  establishes  a  point  of  sympathy,  and 
softens  the  hardships  of  submission.  What  parent  knows 
not  that  then  only  are  his  orders  listened  to  as  oracles,  when 
they  are  sent  forth,  not  with  the  harsh  clangor  of  self-will, 
but  in  the  quiet  tones  that  issue  from  behind  the  shrine  of 
duty? 

In  the  construction  which  I  have  given  to  the  sentiment 
of  Christ,  it  is  not  necessary  to  assume  that  the  infant  mind 
is  peculiarly  susceptible  of  religious  impressions;  or  that, 
because  it  is  taken  as  the  emblem  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
it  must  on  that  account  be  laboriously  and  prematurely 
crowded  with  theological  ideas :  the  issue  of  which  would 
be,  an  artificial  assumption  of  states  of  sentiment,  and  an 
affectation  of  desires,  wholly  unnatural  and  unreal,  and 
absolutely  incapable  as  yet  of  any  deep  root  of  sincerity. 
Except  in  circumstances  of  sickness  or  grief,  which  pre- 
maturely ripen  the  mind  and  make  its  wants  anticipate  its 
years,  childhood  has  little  need  of  a  religion,  in  our  sense 
of  the  word ;  for  God  has  given  it,  in  its  very  lot,  a  religion 
of  its  own,  the  sufficiency  of  which  it  were  impiety  to  doubt. 
The  child's  veneration  can  scarcely  climb  to  any  loftier 
height  than  the  soul  of  a  wise  and  good  parent ;  —  well 
even,  if  he  can  distantly,  and  with  wistful  contemplation, 
scan  even  that.  How  can  there  be  for  him  diviner  truth 
than  his  father's  knowledge,  a  more  wondrous  world  than 
his  father's  experience,  a  better  providence  than  his  mother's 
vigilance,  a  securer  fidelity  than  in  their  united  promise  ? 
Encompassed  round  by  these,  he  rests  as  in  the  embrace 
of  the  only  omniscience  he  can  comprehend.  Nor  let  this 
domestic  faith  suffer  disturbance  before  its  time.  It  is 
enough  if  he  but  sees  the  parents  bend  with  silent  awe,  or 
hears  them  speak  as  if  they  were  children  too,  before  a 
holier  still :  this  will  carry  on  the  ideal  gradation  of  rever- 
2nce,  and  show  the  filmy  deep  where  the  steps  ascend  the 


198  CHRIST   AND    THE   LITTLE   CHILL. 

skies.  And  then,  when  the  time  of  free-will  is  come,  and 
youth  is  cast  forth  from  its  protection  into  the  bewildering 
forces,  now  fierce  and  now  seductive,  of  mid-life,  religion 
comes  in,  as  the  just  and  natural  successor  to  domestic  in- 
fluences ;  shaping  forth,  for  the  heart's  shelter  in  the  w41d 
immensity,  the  walls  of  an  adamantine  Providence,  and 
spreading  over  the  uncovered  head  the  dome  of  immortality. 
Oh  it  is  thus  only  that  we  mortals,  in  our  maturity  of  energy 
and  passion,  can  dwell  on  earth  in  purity  and  peace.  By  a 
polity  of  self-interest,  and  adjustments  of  promotion,  and 
agencies  of  fear,  we  might  no  doubt  have  the  world  gov- 
erned as  a  camp  or  a  prison  ;  but  by  faith  alone  can  we 
dwell  in  it  as  a  home,  and  nestle  domestically  in  our  allotted 
portion  of  space  and  time.  Taught  by  Christ,  we  glance 
at  the  visible  creation,  once  so  awful,  so  full  of  forces  rush- 
ing we  knew  not  whither,  and  involving  us  in  their  indomi- 
table speed,  —  and  it  becomes  the  mansion  of  God's  house, 
peaceful  as  a  father's  abode ;  the  sun  that  warms  us  in  our 
domestic  hearth ;  and  the  blue  canopy  roofs  us  in  with  un- 
speakable protection.  And  as  for  life  and  its  struggles,  its 
stormiest  conflicts  are  but  the  mimic  battles,  whereby  the 
spiritual  athlete  trains  himself  for  a  higher  theatre ;  and  if 
perchance,  among  the  restless  multitude  that  hurry  over  the 
scene,  a  neighbor  should  fall,  shall  I  not  help  him,  though 
it  be  his  own  demon  passion  that  rends  him  ?  O  child  of 
my  Father,  wounded,  bleeding,  and  worn  by  inward  woes, 
turn  not  thy  face  away!  let  me  lift  thee  from  thy  bed  of 
rock,  and  stretch  thee  on  the  green  sod  of  a  pure  affection  ; 
for  am  I  not  thy  brother,  stricken  in  thy  stripes,  and  healed 
in  thy  rest  ? 

This  restoration  to  us  of  the  filial  feelings  is  the  main 
illustrative  point  in  our  Lord's  analogy  between  the  spirit 
of  piety  and  that  of  infancy.  But  there  are  other  charac- 
teristics of  childhood,  which  religion  renders  back  to  us, 
freshened  and  ennobled.  To  the  child,  the  time  before  him 
seems  to  have  no  end.     It  is  long  before  he  essays  to  meas- 


CHRIST   AND   THE   LITTLE   CHILD.  199 

ure  it  at  all ;  and  when  he  does,  it  is  only  to  prove  it  im- 
measurable. The  next  year  is  as  a  gigantic  bridge  that 
-joins  the  two  eternities ;  and  as  for  all  beyond,  it  is  a 
land  boundless,  safe  ;  verdant  as  the  spring  meadow,  and 
flooded  over  with  gladdest  sunshine.  The  open  graves  lie 
hid  among  the  grnss ;  and  the  horizon  shows  not  the  little 
cloud,  that  shall  bring  up  the  overcasting  of  the  heavens. 
Let  a  few  years  pass,  and  how  does  the  vast  field  contract 
itself,  and  the  stability  of  things  seem  shaken  !  The  merry 
playmates,  whose  laugh  still  rings  in  our  memory,  by  what 
storms  have  they  been  shattered  ;  and  now  wander  dis- 
persed, like  a  shipwrecked  crew,  whose  faithful  hearts  could 
keep  together  no  longer  against  necessities  so  sharp  !  Be- 
fore the  middle  of  our  natural  career  the  wastes  of  vicissi- 
tude become  deplorable :  nor  could  any  thoughtful  man,  if 
abandoned  to  physical  impressions,  feel  the  great  mountain 
of  life  crumbling  away  beneath  him,  and  see  portion  after 
portion  dropping  into  the  abyss  on  which  it  seems  built,  till 
but  a  film  separates  him  too  from  the  gulf,  without  the  chill  of 
an  awe  most  sad.  But  this  impression  of  a  mournful  brevity 
in  our  existence,  the  spirit  of  our  faith  corrects.  To  the 
life  which  had  begun  to  appear  like  a  process  of  continual 
loss,  it  adds  another  which  is  an  everlasting  gain ;  and  we 
look  again  upon  the  future  with  eyes  of  childlike  joy,  seeing 
that,  as  our  infant  hearts  had  said,  it  hath  no  end,  nor  any 
grief  that  can  endure.  From  the  cypress-tree  beneath  whose 
shadow  we  had  placed  ourselves  to  weep,  we  pass  on  with 
lightened  step  into  the  paradise  of  God,  where  is  a  rustling 
as  of  whispers  of  divinest  peace,  and  hills,  truly  called 
eternal,  close  us  round. 

01)  blest  beyond  expression  are  they  who,  by  this  spirit  of 
Christ,  call  back  the  freshness  of  their  early  years,  and  shed 
it  over  the  wisdom  of  maturity;  who,  by  attaching  the 
great  and  transforming  idea  of  God  to  every  thing,  deprive 
the  humblest  existence  of  its  monotony!  who  hear  in  the 
speech,  and  behold  in  the  incidents,  of  every  day,  somewhat 


200  CHRIST   AND  THE  LITTLE  CHILD. 

that  is  sacred !  For  them  life  has  no  satiety,  disappoint- 
ment no  sting.  They  bear  within  them  a  penetrative  power, 
which  pierces  beneath  the  earthy  surface  of  things,  and  de- 
tects a  meaning  that  is  heavenly  ;  enriching  common  senti- 
ment with  profound  truth  ;  lifting  common  duties  from  the 
conventional  and  the  respectable  into  the  holy  and  divine ; 
and  amid  trials  of  the  hour,  giving  dignity  to  that  which 
else  were  humiliating  and  mean. 


XXI. 

THE   CHRISTIANITY  OF   OLD   AGE. 


Philemon  9. 

FOR  love's   sake  I    RATHER    BESEECH    THEE,   BEING    SUCH  A  ONE  AS    PAUt. 
THE   AGED. 

The  reverence  for  age  is  a  striking  and  refreshing  feature 
in  the  civilization  of  ancient  and  Pagan  times.  The  frequent 
traces  of  it  in  the  literature  of  Greece  and  Rome,  compared 
with  the  silence  of  Christian  precept  on  the  subject,  might 
be  thought  to  indicate,  that  this  sentiment  owes  no  obliga- 
tion to  Christianity,  and  has  a  better  home  in  the  humanities 
of  nature  than  in  the  suggestions  of  faith.  The  conclusion, 
however,  would  be  wholly  unwarrantable  ;  and  would  never 
occur  except  to  those  who  do  not  look  beyond  the  letter 
into  the  spirit  of  a  system,  and  who  think  to  understand  a 
religion  by  arithmetical  reckoning  of  its  maxims.  Every  sys- 
tem naturally  strengthens  most  its  weakest  points.  That 
Cicero  wrote  a  treatise  upon  age,  and  expended  on  it  all 
the  ingenuity  of  his  philosophy,  and  the  graces  of  his  dia- 
logue, proves  that  he  regarded  this  department  of  morality 
with  anxiety  and  apprehension  :  nor  would  Christianity 
have  left  the  topic  untouched,  if  its  spirit  and  faith  had 
not  lifted  this  class  of  duties  beyond  the  danger  of  neglect. 
A  decline  of  tenderness  towards  the  aged,  —  mean  or  even 
melancholy  sentiments  with  respect  to  their  infirmities,  — 
can  never  arise  without  scepticism  of  human  immortality, 
and  a  total  defection  from  the  Christian  mind. 

The  dignity  of  age,  in  the  ancient  world,  was  sustained 
by  many  considerations,  of  mingled  expediency  and  affection, 


202  THE   CHRISTIANITY  OF   OLD  AGE. 

which  retain  with  us  but  little  force.  Of  how  many  honors 
has  the  printing-press  alone  deprived  the  hoary  head  !  It 
has  driven  out  the  era,  so  genial  to  the  old,  of  spoken  wisdom, 
and  threatens  a  reign  of  silence  by  putting  all  knowledge 
and  experience  into  type.  The  patriarch  of  a  community 
can  never  be  restored  to  the  kind  of  importance  which  he 
possessed  in  the  elder  societies  of  the  world.  He  was  his 
neighbor's  chronicler ;  bearing  within  him  the  only  extant 
image  of  many  departed  scenes  and  memorable  deeds,  and 
able  to  link  the  dim  traditions  of  the  past  with  the  living 
incidents  of  the  present.  He  was  their  most  qualified  coun- 
sellor ;  his  memory  serving  as  the  archives  of  the  state,  and 
supplying  many  a  passage  of  history  illustrative  of  existing 
emergencies,  and  solving  some  civic  perplexity.  He  was 
their  poet ;  representative  of  an  age  already  passed  from 
the  actual  into  the  ideal ;  associate  or  contemporary  of  men 
whose  names  have  become  venerable  ;  and  in  the  oft-repeated 
tale  of  other  days,  from  which  time  has  expelled  whatever 
was  prosaic,  weaving  the  retrospect  of  life  into  an  epic. 
He  was  their  priest ;  loving  to  nurture  wonder  and  spread 
the  sense  of  mystery,  by  recounting  the  authentic  prodigies 
of  his  own  or  his  fathers'  years,  when  omen  and  prophecy 
were  no  dubious  things,  but  sober  verities  which  Providence 
had  not  yet  begrudged  the  still  pious  earth.  From  all  these 
prerogatives  he  is  now  deposed,  supplanted  in  his  authority 
by  the  journal  and  the  library ;  whose  speechless  and  im- 
personal lore  coldly,  but  effectually,  supplies  the  wants  once 
served  by  the  living  voice  of  elders  kindling  with  the  in- 
spiration of  the  past. 

By  far  other  and  higher  considerations  does  Christianity 
sustain  reverential  sentiments  towards  age.  In  the  shape 
which  they  formerly  assumed,  they  were  the  effects  and 
marks  of  an  imperfect  intellectual  civilization  :  surviving 
now,  they  are  a  part  of  the  devout  humanities  diffused  by 
the  spirit  of  Christ.  But  for  that  spirit,  every  change  which 
made  the  old  less  useful  would  have  made  them  less  revered. 


THE   CHRISTIANITY   OF   OLD   AGE.  203 

But  the  merely  social  and  utilitarian  estimate  of  human 
beings  can  never  become  prevalent,  so  long  as  faith  in  the 
immortal  soul  is  genuine  and  sincere,  and  Jesus  is  permitted 
to  teach  in  his  own  way  the  honor  that  is  due  to  all  men. 
To  him  did  God  give  it  to  be  the  great  foe  of  all  scorn  and 
negligence  of  heart ;  nor  are  there  any  tenants  of  life  on 
whose  lot  he  has  shed  a  greater  sanctity,  than  on  those  who 
are  visibly  on  the  verge  of  their  departure.  Let  us  observe 
for  a  few  moments  how  Christianity  teaches  the  world  to 
look  upon  the  aged. 

Not,  certainly,  as  its  worn-out  tools,  who  have  done  their 
work,  and  are  fit  only  to  be  flung  aside  to  rust  amid  worth- 
less things.  Not  with  sordid  discontent,  as  on  unwelcome 
and  tedious  guests,  that  they  linger  still  to  consume  a  hospi- 
tality which  they  will  never  repay,  and  keep  possession  of 
sources  of  enjoyment,  on  which  more  vivid  appetites  are 
impatient  to  enter.  For  wherever  the  slightest  vestige  of 
such  feelings  exists,  there  can  be  no  remembrance  of  that 
higher  field  of  service,  of  that  nobler  and  more  finished  work, 
for  which  time,  to  its  last  beat,  continues  to  prepare.  So 
Epicurean  a  thought  harbors  in  the  low  grounds  of  selfish- 
ness and  sense,  and  has  never  felt  the  pure  breath  of  faith 
and  reverence.  Is  there  nothing  which  can  drive  us  from 
this  infatuation,  and  persuade  us  to  look  at  a  human  being, 
not  for  what  he  Aas,  but  for  what  he  is?  Is  he  nothing 
then  but  a  pensioner  of  Mammon,  whose  pittance  is  a  pleas- 
ant sight  for  greedy  eyes  ?  Can  we  see  him  decline  step  by 
step  to  the  brink  of  the  dark  abyss,  till  the  ground  crumbles 
beneath  him  and  he  slips  in,  and  yet  spend  all  our  anxiety 
on  the  dropped  cloak  he  has  left  behind  ? 

Nor  are  the  mere  feelings  of  instinctive  compassion  tow- 
ards weakness  and  helplessness  those  with  which  Christianity 
encourages  us  to  look  on  age.  For,  these  contemplate  only 
its  physical  attributes ;  they  virtually  deny  or  overlook  all 
its  claims,  except  those  of  its  animal  infirmities ;  and  show 
a  mind  forgetful  of  the  capacities  within,  latent  perhaps, 


204  THE   CHRISTIANITY   OF   OLD   AGE. 

but  yet  imperishable,  that  have  toiled  in  a  great  work,  and 
are  on  the  threshold  of  a  greater ;  that  can  know  no  eclipse 
but  that  of  shame,  nor  any  decrepitude  but  that  of  sin. 

It  has  been  imagined  that  religious  faith  does  not  like  to 
draw,  attention  to  the  decline  which  precedes,  often  by  years, 
the  approach  of  death ;  that  the  spectacle  of  a  human  being 
in  ruins  terrifies  the  expectation  of  futurity,  and  humbles 
the  mind  with  mean  suspicions  of  its  destiny.  Scepticism, 
which  delights  in  all  the  ill-bodings  which  can  be  drawn 
from  evil  and  decay,  takes  us  to  the  corner  where  the  old 
man  sits ;  shows  us  the  bent  frame,  and  fallen  cheeks,  and 
closing  avenues  of  sense;  points  to  the  palsied  head,  and 
compels  us  to  listen  to  the  drivelling  speech,  or  perhaps  the 
childish  and  pitiable  cry ;  and  then  asks,  whether  this  is  the 
being  so  divinely  gifted  and  so  solemnly  placed,  sharer  of 
the  immortality  of  God,  and  waiting  to  embark  into  infini- 
tude? I  answer,  —  assuredly  not:  neither  in  the  wrecked 
frame,  nor  in  the  negation  of  mind,  is  there  any  thing  im- 
mortal :  it  is  not  this  frail  and  shattered  bark,  visible  to  the 
eye,  that  is  to  be  launched  upon  the  shoreless  sea.  The  mind 
within,  which  you  do  not  show  me,  whose  indications  are 
for  a  time  suppressed,  —  as  they  are  in  every  fever  that 
brings  stupor  and  delirium,  in  every  night  even  that  brings 
sleep,  —  the  mind,  of  whose  high  achievements,  whose  capa- 
cious thought,  whose  toils  and  triumphs  of  conscience  and 
affection,  living  friends  will  reverently  tell  you,  —  the  mind, 
which  every  moment  of  God's  time  for  seventy  years  has 
been  sedulous  to  build,  and  from  which  the  deforming  scaf- 
fold is  about  to  fall  away,  —  this  alone  is  the  principle  for 
which  we  claim  immortality.  Say  not  that,  because  we 
cannot  trace  its  operations,  it  is  extinct :  perhaps,  while 
you  speak,  it  may  burst  into  a  flame,  and  contradict  you. 
For  sometimes  age  is  known  to  wake,  and  the  soul  to  kindle, 
ere  it  departs  ;  to  perforate  the  shut  gates  of  sense  with 
sudden  light,  and  gush  with  lustre  to  the  eye,  and  love  and 
reason  to  the  speech ;  as  if  to  make  it  evident,  that  death 


THE  CHKISTIANITY   OF  OLD   AGE.  205 

may  be  nativity ;  as  if  the  traveller  who  had  fallen  asleep 
with  the  fatigues  of  the  way,  conscious  that  he  drew  near 
his  journey's  end,  and  warned  by  the  happy  note  of  arrival, 
looked  out  refreshed  and  eager  through  the  morning  air 
for  the  fields  and  streams  of  his  new  abode.  And  if  any 
transient  excitement  near  the  close  of  life  can,  even  occa- 
sionally, thus  resuscitate  the  spirit ;  if  some  vehement  stroke 
upon  a  chord  of  ancient  sympathy  can  sometimes  restore  it 
in  its  strength,  it  is  there  still ;  and  only  waits  that  perma- 
nent rejuvenescence  which  its  escape  into  the  infinite  may 
effect  at  once. 

It  is  not  a  little  diflScult  to  understand,  in  what  way  these 
objectors  would  desire  to  improve  the  adjustments  of  life, 
in  order  to  get  rid  of  the  grounds  of  their  scepticism. 
Would  they  totally  abolish  the  infirmities  of  years,  and 
maintain  the  energy  of  youth  unto  the  end  ?  Then  would 
there  remain  no  apparent  reason  for  removal  or  change : 
death  would  have  looked  tenfold  more  like  extinction  than 
it  does  now :  and  we  should  assuredly  have  reasoned,  "  If 
the  Divine  Father,  in  his  benignity,  had  intended  us  to  per- 
severe in  life  at  all,  he  would  have  left  us  in  peace  in  this 
dear  old  world."  As  it  is,  there  appears,  after  the  decrepi- 
tude of  age,  an  obvious  need  of  some  such  mighty  revolution 
as  death :  the  mortality  of  such  a  body  becomes  a  clear 
essential  to  the  immortality  of  the  soul :  and  our  departure 
assumes  the  probable  aspect  of  a  simple  migration  of  the 
mind,  —  a  journey  of  refreshment,  —  a  passage  to  new  scenes 
of  that  infinite  universe,  to  a  mere  speck  of  which,  since  we 
can  discover  its  immensity,  it  seems  unlikely  that  we  should 
be  confined. 

Or  is  the  demand  of  a  different  kind ;  not  for  immunity 
from  bodily  decline,  but  for  an  exemption  of  the  soul  from 
its  effects?  for  faculties  unconscious  of  the  sinking  frame, 
—  dwelling  in  a  tenement  of  whose  changes  they  shall  be 
independent  ?  And  what  is  this,  when  you  reflect  upon  it, 
but  to  ask  for  a  total  separation  of  the  material  from  the 


206  THE   CHBISTIANITY  OF   OLD  AGE. 

spiritual  element  of  our  nature,  —  for  the  very  boon  which 
we  suppose  to  be  obtained  in  death,  a  disembodied  mind? 
For,  a  corporeal  frame  that  did  not  affect  the  mental  prin- 
ciple, would  no  more  be  any  proper  part  of  us,  than  the 
limbs  of  another  man  or  the  substance  of  the  sun  :  its  mere 
juxtaposition  or  coincidence  in  space  with  our  sentient  soul 
(even  could  such  a  thing  be  truly  affirmed)  would  not  mix 
it  up  with  our  identity.  Unless  it  were  the  interposed 
medium  through  which  we  communicated  with  the  external 
world,  —  the  appointed  pathway  of  sensation  ;  unless,  that 
is,  we  experienced  vicissitudes  of  internal  consciousness  pre- 
cisely corresponding  to  all  its  external  changes,  —  we  should 
have  no  interest  in  it,  and  it  would  have  as  little  concern 
with  our  personality  as  the  clothes  or  the  elements  in  which 
we  live.  A  hand  that  should  leave  us  affected  in  the  same 
way,  whether  it  touched  ice  or  fire ;  a  tongue  that  should 
recognize  no  difference  between  food  and  poison ;  an  eye 
that  should  convey  to  us  the  same  impression  through  all 
its  altering  states,  —  would  be  unfitted  for  all  its  functions, 
and  be  a  mere  foreign  encumbrance  upon  our  life.  That 
our  organization  reports  instantly,  —  with  a  speed  that  no 
magnetic  signal  can  surpass,  —  to  the  mind  within  ;  that  it 
works  changes  in  our  conscious  principle  precisely  propor- 
tionate to  its  own,  and  affording  a  true  measure  of  them,  — 
is  the  very  attribute  which  constitutes  its  exactitude  and 
perfection.  If  then  it  were  absurd  to  wish  for  limbs  that 
could  undergo  exhaustion  and  laceration  without  our  feeling 
them,  and  nerves  that  would  give  no  knowledge  of  fever 
or  inflammation,  it  would  be  no  less  irrational  to  desire  a 
release  of  the  mind  from  those  infirmities  of  age,  which 
are  but  a  long  fatigue,  — life's  final  disease.  All  the  lights 
of  perception  and  emotion  flow  in  upon  us  through  the 
colored  glass  of  our  organic  frame ;  and  however  perfect 
the  power  of  mental  vision  may  remain,  if  the  windows  be 
darkened,  the  radiance  will  be  obscure. 

And  in  the  two  most  marked  characteristics  of  old  age,  — 


'       THE   CHRISTIANITY  OF  OLD   AGE.  207 

the  obtuseness  of  immediate  perception,  and  the  freshness 
of  remote  memories,  —  may  we  not  even  discern  an  obvious 
intimation  of  the  great  future,  and  a  fitting  preparative  for 
its  approach  ?  The  senses  become  callous  and  decline,  verg- 
ing gently  to  the  extinction  which  awaits  them,  and  in  their 
darkness  permitting  the  mild  lustre  of  wisdom  and  of  faith 
—  if  it  be  there  —  to  shine  forth  and  glow ;  and  if  not,  to 
show  in  what  a  night  the  soul  dwells  without  them.  And 
that  the  mind  should  betake  itself,  ere  it  departs,  with  such 
exclusive  attachment  to  the  past,  is  surely  suitable  to  its 
position.  True,  the  enthusiastic  devotion  of  an  awed  spec- 
tator, staViding  near  to  say  farewell,  naturally  takes  the 
opposite  direction,  and  steals  before  the  pilgrim  to  his  home, 
and  wonders  that  the  old  man's  talk  can  linger  so  around 
things  gone  by.  But  is  it  not  that  already  the  thoughts 
fall  into  the  order  of  judgment,  and  practise  the  incipient 
meditations  of  heaven  ?  In  that  world  of  which  we  have 
no  experience,  we  can  at  first  have  no  anticipation :  and  in 
the  place  whither  we  go  for  retribution,  we  must  begin  with 
retrospect.  All  things  and  thoughts,  all  passions  and  pur- 
suits, must  live  again  :  stricken  memory  cannot  withhold 
them :  there  is  a  divination  of  conscience,  at  which  their 
ghosts  must  rise,  to  haunt  or  bless  us.  And  when  the  old 
man  incessantly  reverts  to  years  that  had  receded  into  the 
far  distance,  and  finds  scenes  that  had  appeared  to  vanish 
come  back  even  from  his  boyhood  and  stand  around  him 
with  preternatural  distinctness,  when  ancient  snatches  of 
Jfe's  melodies  thrill  through  his  dreams,  and  the  faces  of 
early  friends  look  in  upon  him  often,  the  preparation  is  sig- 
nificant. He  is  gathering  his  witnesses  together,  making 
ready  the  theatre  of  trial,  and  collecting  the  audience  for 
judgment.  These  are  they  that  were  with  him  in  his  man- 
ifold temptations,  and  can  tell  him  of  his  victory  or  his  fall ; 
that  exercised  such  spirit  of  duty  as  was  in  him ;  whom  his 
selfishness  injured,  or  his  fidelity  blessed.  Remembrance 
has  broken  the  seals  of  its  tombs  ;   its  sainted  dead  come 


208  THE   CHRISTIANITY   OF   OLD   AGE. 

forth  at  the  trump  of  God  within  the  soul,  and  declare  the 
tribunal  set. 

With  emotions  then  far  different  from  the  meanness  of 
animal  compassion,  and  the  coldness  of  doubt,  does  the  spirit 
of  Christ  teach  the  world  to  look  on  age.  The  veneration 
for  it  which  our  religion  inspires,  comes  not  from  the  past 
alone,  but  rather  from  the  future.  In  any  view  indeed,  the 
long-travelled  and  experienced  mortal,  in  whose  mind  alone 
survive  the  pictures  of  many  vanished  scenes,  and  the  land- 
scape of  time  sleeps  in  true  perspective,  must  be  regarded 
with  strong  interest.  If  life  were  but  a  brief  reality,  that 
fleetly  passed  into  a  shadow  and  nothingness,  thd  point  of 
vanishing  would  not  be  without  its  solemn  grandeur.  But 
with  how  profound  a  reverence  must  we  look  on  its  last 
stage,  as  entering  the  margin  of  God's  eternity ;  as  the  land- 
mark of  earth's  boundary-ocean,  fanned  already  by  the 
winds,  and  feeling  the  spray,  of  the  infinite  ! 

Nor  are  the  feelings  less  humanizing  and  holy  with  which 
Christianity  teaches  the  aged  disciple  to  regard  the  world 
and  himself.  He  leaves  it,  —  if  he  he  a  disciple,  —  not  with 
censoriousness,  but  with  faith  ;  knowing  that,  with  all  its 
generations,  the  earth,  as  well  as  his  own  mind,  is  a  thing 
young  in. the  years  of  eternal  Providence.  He  has  too  large 
a  vision  to  be  readily  cast  down  about  its  prospects.  If  its 
social  changes  are  not  to  his  desire,  if  that  for  which  he 
battled  as  for  the  true  and  good  seems  even  to  be  retreating 
from  his  hopes,  and  questionable  novelties  to  be  deceiving 
the  hearts  of  men, — yet  he  sinks  without  despair,  and 
waves,  as  he  retires,  a  cheerful  and  affectionate  adieu.  He 
has  too  vivid  a  sense  of  the  brevity  of  a  human  life,  to 
despond  at  any  vicissitudes  that  may  occur,  any  tendencies 
that  may  disclose  themselves,  within  such  space.  He  freely 
blesses  God,  that  when,  from  its  altered  ways,  the  world  has 
become  no  longer  congenial  to  him,  he  is  permitted  to  leave 
it ;  and  he  can  rejoice  that  those  who  remain  behind  behold 
it  with  different  eyes :  for  he  recognizes  and  admires  God's 


THE   CHRISTIANITY   OF   OLD   AGE.  209 

law,  that  those  who  are  to  live  in  the  world  shall  not  be  out 
of  love  with  it.  From  the  mental  station  which  he  occupies 
it  certainly  seems  as  if  twilight  were  gathering  fast  and  lead- 
ing on  the  night :  and  so  for  two  things  he  is  thankful ;  that 
the  vesper-heW  flings  its  note  upon  his  ear,  and  calls  him  to 
prayer  and  rest ;  and  that  on  others  of  his  race,  who  gaze 
into  the  heavens  from  a  different  point,  the  morning  seems 
to  be  rising,  and  its  fresh  breeze  to  be  up,  and  the  matin 
rings  its  summons :  —  for  always  there  must  be  prayer ;  only 
at  dawn  it  .leads  to  labor,  and  at  eve  to  rest.  Nor  does  he 
leave  the  world  which  has  been  his  locality  so  long,  as  a 
scene  in  which  he  has  no  further  interest.  Possibly,  even, 
its  future  changes  may  not  be  hidden  from  his  view :  and  at 
all  events  his  sympathies  dwell  and  will  dwell  there  still : 
and  all  that  most  truly  constitutes  his  being,  the  work  he 
has  done,  the  wills  he  has  moved,  the  loving  thoughts  he 
has  awakened,  remain  behind  ;  enter  the  great  structure  of 
human  existence,  and  share  its  perpetuity. 

The  aged,  ere  they  depart,  are  able  to  report  to  us  some- 
thing of  the  exactitude  of  the  divine  retribution.  The  jus- 
tice of  God  does  not  always  delay  and  postpone  its  sentence 
till  it  is  inaudible  to  the  living.  There  are  some  of  our 
human  works  that  "  go  before  us  to  judgment ; "  and  the 
verdict  may  be  apprehended  by  every  attentive  mind.  Our 
nature  does  not  all  die  at  the  same  moment ;  but  the  animal 
elements  begin  to  vanish,  while  the  moral  still  remain.  And 
truly  those  in  whom  the  lower  self  has  been  permitted  to 
gain  a  terrible  ascendency,  those  whose  life  has  been  in  obe- 
dience to  the  precept  "  eat  and  be  filled,"  meet  their  dreary 
recompense  in  age  :  one  part  of  their  moral  probation  is 
visibly  and  awfully  brought  to  its  close  ;  and  in  the  miseries 
of  a  blank  and  chafing  mind,  a  querulous  imbecility  of  tem- 
per, a  heart  unrefreshed  by  a  warm  sympathy,  every  eye 
may  discern  the  issue.  But  when  the  soul  has  been  faithful 
to  the  higher  purposes  of  existence ;  when  there  has  been  a 
benign  observance  of  the  moral  relations  which  give  dignity 

14 


210  THE   CHRISTIANITY   OF   OLD   AGE. 

to  life  ;  when  the  sympathies  of  kindred  and  neighborhood 
and  society,  the  exercise  of  intelligent  thouglit,  the  practice 
of  unostentatious  benevolence,  the  tranquil  maintenance  of 
faith  and  trust,  have  engaged  and  consecrated  the  years  of 
best  vigor,  —  there,  even  though  the  nobler  fires  of  nature 
grow  languid  and  decline,  the  mild  lighfr  of  a  good  heart 
shines  to  the  last,  cheerful  to  all  observers,  and  casts  no  faint 
illumination  on  past  and  future.  The  peace  of  God  full 
often  survives  the  lapse  of  meaner  comforts,  and  drives 
away  every  trace  of  fretful ness  from  age  and  terror  from 
death ;  leaving  simply  the  rest  incident  to  the  completion 
of  a  good  and  worthy  fight;  and  preparing  all  hearts  to 
hope  for  a  quiet  migration  to  a  better  country,  even  a  heav- 
enly. Calm  as  this,  after  a  fiery  career,  was  the  retirement 
of  "  such  a  one  as  Paul  the  aged,"  when  "  the  time  of  his 
departure  was  at  hand." 


XXII. 
NOTHING    HUMAN   EVER   DIES. 


ECCLESIASTES  VII.    17. 
WHY   SHOULDST  THOU  DIE   BEFORE  THY  TIME? 

The  only  resource  for  a  man  witliout  faith  is  to  be  also 
without  love ;  which  indeed,  by  the  compassion  of  Heaven, 
he  will  naturally  be.  For  scarcely  can  any  thing  be  more 
serious,  than  the  aspect  which  life  assumes,  when  any  con- 
siderable portion  of  it  lies  in  retrospect,  beneath  an  affec- 
tionate eye  that  can  discern  no  more  than  its  visible  and 
palpable  relations.  A  few  years  of  unconscious  gain,  fol- 
lowed by  a  long  process  of  conscious  loss,  complete  the 
story  of  our  being  here.  The  best  shelter  that  the  world 
affords  us  is  the  first,  —  the  affections  into  which  we  are 
born,  and  which  are  too  natural  for  us  to  know  their  worth, 
till  they  are  disturbed ;  —  for  constant  blessings,  like  con- 
stant pressures,  are  the  last  to  be  discovered.  During  the 
whole  period  of  childhood,  when  the  most  rapid  and  aston- 
ishing development  of  vitality  and  acquisition  of  power  are 
going  on,  the  wonder  and  the  bliss  are  htdden  from  our 
eyes  ;  gratitude  is  scarcely  possible ;  and  the  delighted  gaze 
cf  the  contemplating  spectator  is  unintelligible.  "We  wake 
up  at  our  first  grave  affliction  ;  our  blindness  is  removed  by 
pain;  the  film  is  purified  by  tears,  and  alas!  the  moment 
sorrow  gives  us  sight,  the  good  that  we  behold  is  gone. 
And  thenceforth  we  love  knowingly,  and  lose  constantly ; 
and  after  dreaming  that  all  things  were  given  to  us,  or  were 
even  by  nature  our  own,  we  find  them  only  lent,  and  see  in 
our  remaining  years  the  undecyphered  list  of  their  recall. 


212  NOTHING  HUMAN  EVER   DIES. 

Standing  on  the  shore  which  bounds  the  ocean  of  the  past, 
we  see  treasure  after  treasure  receding  in  the  distance,  or 
thrown  into  that  insatiable  waste,  on  whose  surface  they 
make  a  momentary  smile  of  light,  then  leave  the  gulf  in 
darkness.  Into  that  deep,  year  after  year  has  sunk,  no  less 
rich  than  this*  in  spoils  from  the  human  heart.  Our  fathers 
and  our  early  homes,  the  dream  of  our  first  friendships,  the 
surprise  of  new  affections,  and  all  the  delicious  marvels  of  life 
yet  fresh,  have  vanished  there.  And  soon,  when  we  have 
been  the  losers  long  enough,  we  shall  become  the  lost ;  and 
vainly  struggle  with  the  sweep  of  the  unfathomable  sea. 
Whether  death,  which  treads  closely  on  the  steps  of  life 
upon  our  world,  shall  ever  absolutely  overtake  it,  and  finally 
stop  the  race  of  beauty  and  of  love,  which  now  is  perpet- 
ually begun  afresh  ; — -'whether  the  chills  of  winter,  transient 
now,  will  become  eternal,  and  suppress  for  ever  the  flowers 
which  can  yet  steal  out  again  on  the  bosom  of  the  earth  ;  — 
whether  the  frosts  of  mortality  shall  hereafter  arrest  the  life- 
stream  of  our  race,  and  dismiss  us  to  that  extinction  which 
has  fallen  on  other  tribes  before  us ;  —  and  the  clouds  fly,  and 
the  shrill  hail  fall  over  a  naked  world,  —  Ave  know  not.  But 
to  us,  in  succession,  all  things  die.  The  past  contains  all 
that  time  has  rendered  dear  and  familiar ;  and  that  passes 
silently  away  :  the  future  contains  whatever  is  cold  and 
strange:  and  its  mysteries  come  swiftly  on  us. 

Yet  in  this  melancholy  retrospect,  natural  as  it  is  to  our 
affections,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  illusion,  which  is  the  oc- 
casion of  half  its  sadness.  When  we  go  out  of  ourselves 
and  our  affairs,  and  seize  a  higher  point  of  view,  we  see 
that  this  world  is  no  such  collection  of  perishable  things, 
after  all :  that  as  God  lives  ever  in  it,  he  gathers  around 
him  all  that  i&  most  like  him,  and  suffers  nothing  that  is  ex- 
cellent to  die.  There  are  things  in  his  world  which  are 
not  meant  to  perish  ;  —  works  which  survive  the  workmen, 
and  multiply  blessings  when  they  are  gone,  and  which  make 
*  This  Discourse  was  preached  on  the  last  day  of  the  year. 


NOTHING   HUMAN  EVER   DIES.  213 

all  who  lend  a  faithful  hand  to  them,  part  of  the  husbandry 
of  God,  laborers  with  him  on  that  great  field  of  time,  whose 
culture  and  whose  harvests  are  everlasting.  The  pains  we 
spend  upon  our  mortal  selves,  will  perish  with  ourselves ;  but 
the  care  we  give  out  of  a  good  heart  to  others,  the  efforts  of 
disinterested  duty,  the  deeds  and  thoughts  of  pure  affection, 
are  never  lost :  they  are  liable  to  no  waste ;  and  are  like  a 
force  that  propagates  itself  for  ever,  changing  its  place  but 
not  losing  its  intensity.  In  short,  there  is  a  sense  in  which 
nothing  human  ever  perishes  :  nothing,  at  least,  which 
proceeds  from  the  higher  and  characteristic  part  of  a 
man's  nature ;  nothing  which  comes  of  his  mind  and  con- 
science ;  nothing  which  he  does  as  a  subject  of  God's  moral 
law.  His  good  and  ill  live  after  him,  an  endless  blessing 
or  a  lasting  curse  ;  a  consideration  this  which  gives  dignity 
to  the  humblest  duty,  and  enormity  to  careless  wrong.  .  I  do 
not  now  refer  to  the  consequences  of  conduct  in  a  future 
life ;  but  to  a  certain  perpetual  and  indestructible  influence 
it  must  have  upon  this  world.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose 
that  any  service  rendered  to  mankind,  any  interesting  rela- 
tion of  human  life,  any  exhibition  of  moral  greatness,  even 
any  peculiar  condition  of  society,  can  ever  be  lost :  their 
form  only  disappears;  their  value  still  remains,  and  their 
office  is  everlastingly  performed.  Material  structures  are 
dissolved,  their  identity  and  functions  are  gone.  But  mind 
partakes  of  the  eternity  of  the  great  Parent  Spirit ;  and 
thoughts,  truths,  emotions,  once  given  to  the  world,  are 
never  past :  they  exist  as  truly,  and  perform  their  duty  as 
actively,  a  thousand  years  after  their  origin,  as  on  their 
day  of  birth.  I  would  endeavor  to  illustrate  this  in  some 
separate  instances. 

(1.)     The  acts  of  our  individual  minds  are  never  lost. 

Every  human  deed  of  right  or  wrong  fulfils  two  offices  : 
it  produces  certain  immediate  extrinsic  results;  and  it 
contributes  to  form  some  internal  disposition  or  affection. 
Every  act  of  wise  benevolence  goes  forth,  and  alleviates  a 


214  NOTHING   HUMAN   EVEK   DIES. 

suffering;  it  goes  within^  and  gives  intenser  force  to  the 
spirit  of  mercy.  Every  act  of  vindictiveness  goes  forth  and 
creates  a  woe ;  it  goes  within,  and  inflames  the  diseases  of 
the  pnssions.  In  the  one  rehation,  it  may  be  momentary 
and  transient ;  in  the  other,  permanent  and  beyond  arrest. 
In  the  one,  its  dealings  are  with  pain  and  physical  ill ;  in 
the  other,  with  goodness  or  with  guilt,  and  the  solemn 
determinations  of  the  human  will.  And  inasmuch  as  phys- 
ical ill  is  temporary,  while  moral  agencies  are  eternal 
(for  death  is  the  end  of  pain,  but  where  is  the  end  of  sin?) 
inasmuch  as  a  disinterested  and  holy  mind  is  the  sure 
fountain  of  healing  and  of  peace,  —  and  a  heart  torn  by 
passions  fierce  or  foul  is  at  once  the  seat  and  source  of  a 
thousand  miseries,  —  no  particular  natural  good  or  evil  can 
be  compared  in  importance  with  the  eternal  distinctions 
between  right  and  wrong ;  nor  any  effect  of  an  action  be 
ranked  in  magnitude  with  its  influence  on  human  affections 
and  character.  The  great  oflSce  of  virtue  (we  are  told)  is 
to  bless  mankind  :  very  well ;  but  then  the  greatest  blessing 
is  in  the  increase  of  virtue.  The  essential  character  there- 
fore of  every  choice  we  make  is  to  be  found  in  its  tendency 
to  promote  or  to  impair  the  purity  and  good  order,  the 
generosity  and  moral  dignity,  of  the  mind  :  and  this  element 
of  our  actions  can  never  die ;  but  survives  in  our  present 
selves,  more  truly  than  the  juices  of  the  soil  in  the  leaves 
and  blossoms  of  a  tree.  Such  as  we  are,  we  are  the  off- 
spring of  the  past;  "the  child  is  father  to  the  man;"  our 
present  characters  are  the  result  of  all  that  we  have  desired 
and  done ;  every  deed  has  contributed  something  to  the 
structure,  and  exists  there  as  literally  as  the  stone  in  the 
pyramid  on  whose  courses  it  was  once  laid.  The  action 
of  the  moral  agent  does  not  consist  in  the  contraction  of  a 
muscle  or  the  movement  of  a  limb,  —  and  this  is  all  that- 
is  really  transitory,  —  but  in  the  dispositions  of  the  mind, 
which  are  indelible.  Our  guilt  as  well  as  our  goodness,  once 
contracted,  is  ineffaceable.     No  power  within  the  circuit  of 


NOTHING   HUMAN   EVER  DIES.  215 

God's  providence  can  blot  out  an  idea  from  the  pages  of 
the  secret  heart,  or, cancel  a  force  of  desire  that  has  once 
gone  forth.  How  vain  then  is  the  effort  of  thought  to  fly 
from  the  deed  of  sin,  the  moment  it  is  finished,  — the  hurry 
of  conscience  to  reach  a  place  of  greater  peace,  —  the  eager 
whisper  of  self-love  that  says,  the  lapse  is  over,  and  i  firmer 
march  of  duty  may  be  forthwith  begun !  If  the  foul  thing 
were  cemented  to  the  hour  that  witnessed  its  commission, 
you  might  escape  it ;  but  being  in  the  mind,  you  have  it 
with  you  still,  however  fast  you  fly,  and  however  little  you 
look  behind.  Do  you  imagine  that,  the  evil  passion  having 
spent  its  energy,  you  will  be  safer  in  its  weakness  now  ?  It 
is  the  falsest  of  all  the  sophistries  of  sin  !  A  moral  impulse, 
unlike  a  physical  force,  is  not  exhausted,  but  augmented, 
by  every  effort  it  puts  forth ;  not  only  does  it  part  with  no 
portion  of  its  power,  —  but  it  receives  a  fresh  intensity. 
There  still  does  it  abide,  more  ready  than  ever  to  come  forth 
and  assert  itself  with  strength.  Every  one's  present  mind 
is,  in  truth,  the  standing  memorial,  distinct  and  legible  to 
the  eye  of  Gorl,  of  all  that  he  has  willed  in  time  past :  the 
conduct  and  feelings  of  to-day  are  the  resultant  of  ten  thou- 
sand forces  of  previous  volition ;  nor  would  any  act  remain 
the  same  if  any  one  of  its  predecessors  were  withdrawn  or 
changed.  Even  the  silent  and  hidden  currents  of  desire  and 
thought  leave  their  traces  visible  ;  as  waves  in  the  deeper 
sea  are  discovered,  when  the  waters  ebb,  by  the  ripple-raark 
congealed  upon  the  sand.  Thus  the  acts  of  our  will  do  not 
and  cannot  perish :  they  then  truly  begin  to  live,  when 
they  are  past ;  for  then  only  do  they  become  deposits  in  our 
memory,  and  contributions  to  our  affections  ;  then  only  does 
their  internal  and  mental  history  commence,  and  they  put 
forth  that  viewless  attraction  by  which,  more  than  before, 
the  heart  gravitates  towards  good  or  ill.  There  is  consola- 
tion as  well  as  terror  in  this  thought.  No  strife  of  a  good 
heart,  no  performance  of  a  kind  hand,  has  been  without 
effect.     Not  in  vain  have  been  the  struggles,  however  trivial 


216  NOTHING  HUMAN  EVER  DIES. 

they  seem,  of  our  early  conscience,  the  dreams  of  a  departed 
enthusiasm,  —  the  high  ambition  of  our  untried  virtue  :  these 
things  are  with  us  always,  even  unto  the  end :  in  our  colder 
maturity,  even  in  the  frosts  of  age,  their  centrnl  glow  is 
with  our  nature  secretly,  and  relaxes  unobserved  the  bind- 
ing crust  of  years.  Perishable  deeds  and  transient  emotions 
are  the  materials  wherewith  God  has  given  us  to  build  up 
the  eternal  character ;  and  to  raise  the  tower  by  which  we 
escape  the  floods  of  death,  and,  with  no  impious  intent, 
climb  the  mansions  of  the  skies.  Steadily  must  the  structure 
rise,  like  the  walls  of  the  persecuted  Jerusalem  of  old,  at 
which  some  toiled  while  others  watched.  Unceasingly  we 
must  build ;  parched,  it  may  be,  beneath  the  sultry  sun, 
faint  and  sinking  but  for  draughts  from  the  "  wells  of  salva- 
tion ;  "  on  the  side  of  the  desert,  it  may  be,  where  we  should 
shudder  at  the  tempest's  moan,  but  for  sweet  songs  of  Zion 
that  float  to  us  from  within  ;  —  exposed,  it  may  be,  to 
treacherous  and  banded  foes,  whose  surprises  would  terrify, 
but  for  the  trusty  weapon  and  the  well-trained  arm ;  —  at 
midnight  and  alone,  it  may  be,  cheerless  but  for  the  eyes 
of  Heaven  that  look  upon  our  toil,  and  the  streaks  of  the 
east,  which  promise  us  a  day-spring.  Ye  must  build,  over 
the  valley  and  on  the  rock,  till  a  wall  of  impregnable  pro- 
tection is  thrown  around  the  sanctuary  within,  and  in  se- 
curest peace  ye  can  go  in  and  out  the  temple  of  God's  spirit ; 
—  "which  temple  ye  are." 

(2.)  The  social  and  domestic  relations  whose  loss  we 
mourn  do  not  really  perish,  when  they  seem  to  die. 

Those  relations,  it  is  needless  to  say,  do  not  consist  in  the 
mere  juxtaposition  of  so  many  human  beings.  A  certain 
number  of  animal  lives,  that  are  of  prescribed  ages,  that 
eat  and  drink  together,  and  that  sleep  under  the  same  roof, 
by  no  means  make  a  family.  Almost  as  well  might  we  say 
that  it  is  the  bricks  of  a  house  that  make  a  home.  There  may 
be  a  home  in  the  forest  or  the  wilderness  ;  and  there  may  be 
a  family,  with  all  its  blessings,  though  half  its  members  be  in 


NOTHING  HUMAN  EVER  DIES.  217 

foreign  lands,  or  in  another  world.  It  is  the  gentle  memories, 
the  mutual  thought,  the  desire  to  bless,  the  sympathies  that 
meet  when  duties  are  apart,  the  fervor  of  the  parents'  prayers, 
the  persuasion  of  filial  love,  the  sister's  pride  and  the  brother's 
benediction,  that  constitute  the  true  elements  of  domestic 
life,  and  sanctify  the  dwellings  of  our  birth.  Abolish  the 
sentiments  which  pervade  and  animate  the  machinery  and 
movements  of  our  social  being,  and  their  whole  value  obvi- 
ously disappears.  The  objects  of  affection  are  nothing  to 
us  but  for  the  affection  which  they  excite ;  it  is  for  this  that 
they  exist;  this  removed,  their  relation  loses  its  identity; 
this  preserved,  it  undergoes  no  essential  change.  Friends 
are  assigned  to  us  for  the  sake  of  friendship ;  and  homes  for 
the  sake  of  love ;  and  while  they  perform  these  offices  in 
our  hearts,  in  essence  and  in  spirit  they  are  with  us  still. 
The  very  tears  we  shed  over  their  loss  are  proofs  that  they 
are  not  loss ;  for  what  is  grief,  but  love  itself  restricted  to 
acts  of  memory  and  longing  for  its  other  tasks,  —  imprisoned 
in  the  jiast,  and  striving  vainly  to  be  free  ?  The  cold  hearts 
that  never  deeply  mourn  lose  nothing,  for  they  have  no  stake 
to  lose  :  the  genial  souls  that  deem  it  no  shame  to  weep, 
give  evidence  that  they  have,  fresh  and  living  still,  the  sym- 
pathies, to  nurture  which  our  human  ties  are  closely  drawn. 
God  only  lends  us  the  objects  of  our  affection ;  the  affection 
itself  he  gives  us  in  perpetuity.  In  this  best  sense,  instances 
are  not  rare  in  which  the  friend  or  the  parent  then  first 
begins  to  live  for  us,  when  death  has  withdrawn  him  from 
our  eyes,  and  given  him  over  exclusively  to  our  hearts :  at 
least  I  have  known  a  mother  among  the  sainted  blest,  sway 
the  will  of  a  thoughtful  child  far  more  than  her  living  voice  ; 
brood  with  a  kind  of  serene  omnipresence  over  his  affections 
and  sanctify  his  passing  thought  by  the  mild  vigilance  of 
her  pure  and  loving  eye.  And  what  better  life  for  him 
could  she  have  than  this?  Nay,  standing  as  each  man  does 
in  the  centre  of  a  wide  circumference  of  social  influences, 
recipient   as   he   is   of  innumerable   impressions   from   the 


218  NOTHING   HUMAN   EVER   DIES. 

mighty  human  heart,  his  inward  being  may  be  justly  said 
to  consist  far  more  in  others'  lives  than  in  his  own ;  without 
them  and  alone,  he  would  have  missed  the  greater  part  of 
the  thoughts  and  emotions  which  make  up  his  existence ; 
and  when  he  dies,  he  carries  away  their  life  rather  than  his 
own.  He  dwells  still  below,  within  their  minds :  their 
image  in  his  soul  (which  perhaps  is  the  best  element  of  their 
being)  passes  away  to  the  world  incorruptible  above. 

(3.)  All  that  is  noble  in  the  world's  past  history,  and 
especially  the  minds  of  the  great  and  good,  are,  in  like 
manner,  never  lost. 

The  true  records  of  mankind,  the  human  annals  of  tho 
earth,  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  changes  of  geographical 
names,  in  the  shifting  boundaries  of  dominion,  in  the  travels 
and  adventures  of  the  baubles  of  royalty,  or  even  in  the 
undulations  of  the  greater  and  lesser  waves  of  population. 
We  have  learned  nothing,  till  we  have  penetrated  far  be- 
yond these  casual  and  external  changes,  wliich  are  of  inter- 
est only  as  the  effect  and  symptoms  of  tlie  great  mental 
vicissitudes  of  our  race.  History  is  an  account  of  the  past 
experience  of  humanity ;  and  this,  like  the  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual, consists  in  the  ideas  and  sentiments,  the  deeds  and 
passions,  the  truths  and  toils,  the  virtues  and  the  guilt,  of 
the  mind  and  heart  within.  We  have  a  deep  concern  in  pre- 
serving from  destruction  the  thoughts  of  the  past,  the  lead- 
ing conceptions  of  all  remarkable  forms  of  civilization ;  the 
achievements  of  genius,  of  virtue,  and  of  high  faith.  And 
in  this,  nothing  can  disappoint  us :  for  though  these  things 
may  be  individually  forgotten,  collectively  they  survive,  and 
are  in  action  still.  All  the  past  ages  of  the  world  were 
necessary  to  the  formation  of  the  present ;  they  are  essential 
ingredients  in  the  events  that  occur  daily  before  our  eyes. 
There  is  no  period  so  ancient,  no  country  so  remote,  that  it 
could  be  cancelled  without  producing  a  present  shock  upon 
the  earth.  One  layer  of  time  has  Providence  piled  up  upon 
another  for  immemorial  ages  :  we  that  live  stand  now  upon 


NOTHING   HUMAN    EVER   DIES.  219 

this  "  great  mountain  of  the  Lord  ;"  were  the  strata  below 
removed,  the  fabric  and  ourselves  would  fall  in  ruins.  Had 
Greece,  or  Rome,  or  Palestine,  been  other  than  they  were, 
Christianity  could  not  have  been  what  it  is  :  had  Romanism 
been  different,  Protestantism  could  not  have  been  the  same, 
and  we  might  not  have  been  here  this  day.  The  separate 
civilizations  of  past  centuries  may  be  of  colors  singly  indis- 
cernible ;  but  in  truth,  they  are  the  prismatic  rays  which, 
united,  form  our  present  light.  And  do  we  look  back  on 
the  great  and  good,  lamenting  that  they  are  gone  ?  Do  we 
bend  in  commemorative  reverence  before  them,  and  wish 
that  our  lot  had  been  cast  in  their  better  days  ?  What  is 
the  peculiar  function  which  heaven  assigns  to  such  minds, 
when  tenants  of  our  earth  ?  Have  the  great  and  the  good 
any  nobler  office  than  to  touch  the  human  heart  with  deep 
veneration  for  greatness  and  goodness? — to  kindle  in  the 
understanding  the  light  of  more  glorious  conceptions,  and 
in  the  conscience  the  fires  of  a  holier  virtue  ?  And  that  we 
grieve  for  their  departure,  and  invoke  their  names,  is  proof 
that  they  are  performing  such  blessed  office  still,  —  that  this, 
their  highest  life  for  others,  compared  with  which  their  per- 
sonal agency  is  nothing,  is  not  extinct.  Indeed,  God  has  so 
framed  our  memory  that  it  is  the  infirmities  of  noble  souls 
which  chiefly  fall  into  the  shadows  of  the  past;  while  what- 
ever is  fair  and  excellent  in  their  lives,  comes  forth  from  the 
gloom  in  ideal  beauty,  and  leads  us  on  through  the  wilds 
and  mazes  of  our  mortal  way.  Nor  does  the  retrospect, 
thus  glorified,  deceive  us  by  any  fallacy  ;  for  things  present 
with  us  we  comprehend  far  less  completely,  and  appreciate 
less  impartially,  than  things  past.  Nothing  can  become  a 
clear  object  of  our  thought,  while  we  ourselves  are  in  it: 
we  understand  not  our  childhood,  till  we  have  left  it ;  our 
youth,  till  it  has  departed  ;  our  life  itself  till  it  verges  to  its 
close ;  or  the  majesty  of  genius  and  holiness,  till  we  look 
back  on  them  as  fled.  Each  portion  of  our  human  experi- 
ence becomes  in  succession  intelligible  to  us,  as  we  quit  it 


220  NOTHING  HUMAN  EVER  DIES. 

for  a  new  point  of  view.  God  has  stationed  us  at  the  inter- 
secting line  between  the  known  and  the  unknown :  he  has 
planted  us  on  a  floating  island  of  mystery,  from  which  we 
survey  the  expanse  behind  in  the  clear  light  of  experience 
and  truth,  and  cleave  the  waves,  invisible,  yet  ever  break- 
ing, of  the  unbounded  future.  Our  very  progress,  which  is 
our  peculiar  glory,  consists  in  at  once  losing  and  learning 
the  past ;  in  gaining  fresh  stations  from  which  to  take  a 
wiser  retrospect,  and  become  more  deeply  aware  of  the 
treasures  we  have  used.  We  are  never  so  conscious  of  the 
succession  of  blessings  which  God's  providence  has  heaped 
on  us,  as  when  lamenting  the  lapse  of  years ;  and  are  then 
richest  in  the  fruits  of  time,  when  mourning  that  time  steals 
those  fruits  away. 


V       on-  THK 

XXIII. 
WHERE    IS   THY  GOD? 

EZEKIEL,  VIII.    10-12. 

SO  I  WENT  IN  AND  SAW;  AND  BEHOLD  EVERY  FORM  OF  CREEPING  THINGS 
AND  ABOMINABLE  BEASTS,  AND  ALL  THE  IDOLS  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF 
ISRAEL,  PORTRAYED  UPON  THE  WALLS  ROUND  ABOUT  ;  AND  THERE  STOOD 
BEFORE  THEM  SEVENTY  MEN  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  ISRAEL,  —  WITH  EVERY 
MAN  HIS  CENSER  IN  HIS  HAND;  AND  A  THICK  CLOUD  OF  INCENSE  WENT 
UP.  THEN  SAID  HE  UNTO  ME,  SON  OF  MAN,  HAST  THOU  SEEN  WHAT  THE 
ANCIENTS  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  ISRAEL  DO  IN  THE  DARK,  EVE^Y  MAN  IN 
THE   CHAMBERS  OF   HIS  IMAGERY  ? 

To  a  wise  man  there  is.  no  surer  mark  of  decline  in  the  spirit 
of  a  people,  than  the  corruption  of  their  language,  and  the 
loss  of  meaning  from  their  highest  and  most  sacred  words. 
In  the  affairs  of  government,  of  morals,  of  divinity,  we  retain 
the  phrases  used  by  our  forefathers  in  Shakspeare's  time : 
but  it  is  impossible  to  notice  the  dwindled  thought  which 
they  frequently  contain,  without  feeling  that  the  currency 
struck  for  the  commerce  of  giant  souls  has  been  clipped 
to  serve  the  traffic  of  dwarfs.  Observe,  for  example,  the 
lowered  meaning  of  the  word  Religion.  If  you  ask,  in 
these  days,  what  a  man's  religion  is,  you  are  told  something 
about  the  place  he  goes  to  on  a  Sunday,  or  the  preacher  he 
objects  to  least ;  of  his  likings  and  dislikings,  his  habits  and 
opinions,  his  conventional  professions.  But  who,  from  all 
this,  would  draw  any  inference  as  to  his  character  ?  You 
know  where  to  find  him^  and  how  he  looks  j  but  have  ob- 
tained no  insight  into  what  he  is.  Yet,  can  it  be  doubted 
that  if  we  knew  his  reUgio7i  in  the  true  and  ancient  sense, 
we  should  understand  him  perfectly?  —  should  see  him,  as 


222  WHERE   IS   THY   GOD? 

God  alone  can  see  him  now,  stripped  of  the  disguises  that 
hide  him  even  from  himself,  and  with  the  vital  pulse  itself 
of  thought  and  act  laid  bare  to  view?  The  divine  Omnisci- 
ence, in  relation  to  our  nature,  may  be  said  to  consist  in 
nothing  else  than  a  discernment  of  our  several  religions. 
Not  indeed  that  in  his  infinite  reason  he  knows  any  thing 
about  Churchmen,  and  Methodists,  and  Quakers;  or  dis- 
tinguishes the  silent  meeting  from  the  organ's  pomp ;  or 
takes  account  of  vestments  black  or  white.  These  things 
only  denote  what  a  man  will  call  himself  when  he  is  asked; 
they  refer,  even  when  most  sincere,  to  nothing  that  has 
necessarily  any  deep  seat  within  the  character ;  only  to 
certain  emblems,  either  in  conception  or  in  outward  habit, 
adopted  for  the  expression  of  affections  the  most  various  in 
direction  and  intensity.  But  whoever  can  so  look  into  my 
heart  as  to  tell  whether  there  is  any  thhig  which  I  revere : 
and,  if  there  be,  what  thing  it  is ;  he  may  read  me  through 
and  through,  and  there  is  no  darkness  wherein  I  may  hide 
myself.  This  is  the  master-key  to  the  whole  moral  nature ; 
what  does  a  man  secretly  admire  and  worship?  What 
haunts  him  with  the  deepest  wonder?  What  fills  him  with 
most  earnest  aspiration?  What  should  we  overhear  in  the 
soliloquies  of  his  unguarded  mind?  This  it  is  which,  in 
the  truth  of  things,  constitutes  his  religion;  —  this,  which 
determines  his  precise  place  in  the  scale  of  spiritual  ranks ; 
—  this,  which  allies  him  to  hell  or  heaven;  —  this,  which 
makes  him  the  outcast  or  the  accepted  of  the  moral  affec- 
tions of  the  Holiest.  Every  man's  highest^  nameless  though 
it  be,  is  his  "  living  God:''''  while,  oftener  than  we  can  tell, 
the  being  on  whom  he  seems  to  call,  whose  history  he 
learned  in  the  catechism,  of  whom  he  hears  at  church, — 
with  open  ear  perhaps,  but  with  thick,  deaf  soul,  —  is  his 
dead  God.  It  is  the  former  of  these  that  gives  me  his  genu- 
ine characteristic :  that  uppermost  term  in  his  mind  discloses 
all  the  rest.  Lift  me  the  veil  that  hides  the  penetralia  of  his 
worship,  let  me  see  the  genuflexions  of  his  spirit,  and  catch 


WHERE   IS   THY  GOD?  223 

the  whiff  of  his  incense,  and  look  in  the  face  the  image  at 
whose  feet  he  is  prostrate ;  and  thenceforth  I  know  him  well; 
can  tell  where  to  find  him  in  the  world ;  and  divine  the  temper 
of  his  home.  The  classifications  produced  by  this  principle 
are  not  what  you  will  meet  with  in  any ,"  Sketch  of  all  re- 
ligions." Their  lines  run  across  the  divisions  of  historical 
sects,  wholly  regardless  of  their  separations  :  but  as  they  are 
drawn  by  the  hand  of  nature  and  of  conscience,  rather  than 
by  that  of  pedants  and  of  bigots,  to  study  them  is  to  gain 
insight  into  divine  truth,  instead  of  wandering  through  the 
catalogue  of  human  errors.  Let  us  endeavor  then  to  dis- 
tinguish between  real  and  pretended  religion,  by  adverting 
to  the  several  chief  aims  that  manifestly  preside  over  human 
life. 

Of  many  a  man  you  would  never  hesitate  to  say,  that  his 
chief  aim  was  to  obtain  e«se,  or  wealthy  or  dignity.  These 
are  the  objects  manifestly  in  front  of  him,  and,  like  some 
huge  magnetic  mass,  drawing  his  whole  nature  towards 
them.  The  fact  is  apparent,  not  altogether  from  the  amount 
of  time  which  he  devotes  to  them ;  for  often  the  thing  dear- 
est and  most  sacred  to  the  heart  may  fill  the  fewest  moments, 
and,  though  providing  the  whole  spirit,  may  scarcely  touch 
the  matter,  of  our  days;  nor  even  from  the  topics  of  his 
talk ;  for  there  are  those  who,  in  conversation,  seek  rather 
to  learn  what  is  most  foreign  to  them,  than  to  speak  what 
is  most  native  ;  but  from  certain  slight  though  expressive 
symptoms,  hard  to  describe  in  detail,  yet  not  easily  missed 
in  their  combination.  The  engagements  to  which  he  takes 
with  the  heartiest  relish,  the  sentiments  that  raise  his  quick- 
est response,  the  occasions  that  visibly  call  him  out  and 
shake  him  free,  the  moments  of  his  brightening  eye,  and 
genial  laugh,  and  flowing  voice,  leave  on  us  an  irresistible 
impression  of  his  sincerest  tastes  and  deepest  desires.  And 
above  all  does  he  reveal  these,  when  we  discover  the  persons 
who  most  occupy  his  thoughts ;  in  whom  he  sees  what  he 
would  like  to  be  or  to  appear,  and  whose  lot  or  life  he  feels 


224  WHERE   IS   THY   GOD? 

it  would  be  an  ascent  to  gain.  Judged  by  signs  infallible 
as  these,  how  many  are  there,  surrendered  to  a  low  epicu- 
rean life  !  —  who  know  no  higher  end  than  to  be  comfort- 
able or  renowned !  —  whose  care  is  for  what  they  may  have, 
and  not  for  what  they  might  he !  If  they  achieve  any  real 
work,  it  is  only  that  they  may  reach  its  end  and  take  their 
ease.  If  they  do  a  deed  of  public  justice,  it  is  as  much  due 
to  the  publicity  as  to  the  justice.  If  they  are  detected  in 
a  charity,  it  is  with  the  smallest  possible  mercy  of  heart, 
and  is  performed  as  a  slothful  riddance  of  uneasiness,  or  a 
creditable  compliance  with  convention.  If  they  pray  not 
to  be  led  into  temptation,  it  is  only  the  temptation  to  im- 
prudence and  social  mistake ;  if  to  be  delivered  from  evil, 
it  is  but  the  evil  of  trouble  or  derision.  To  make  the  largest 
use  of  men,  rendeiing  back  the  smallest  amount  of  service,  to 
reap  the  greatest  crop  from  the  present,  and  drop  the  scantiest 
seeds  for  the  future,  is  their  true  problem  of  existence.  They 
never  rush  on  toil  and  struggle  that  bring  no  price  ;  or 
stretch  their  reason  till  it  aches  in  search  of  truth ;  or  cru- 
cify their  affections  in  redemption  of  human  wrongs;  or 
spend  their  reputation  and  their  strength  in  rousing  the 
public  conscience  from  its  sleep.  Their  whole  faculties  are 
apprenticed  to  themselves.  Unconscious  of  a  heaven  above 
them  and  around,  they  live  and  die  on  principles  purely 
mercantile ;  and  the  book  of  life  must  be  a  common  ledger, 
if  their  names  are  written  on  its  page. 

It  is  needless  at  present  to  settle  the  comparative  rank  of 
these  three  seducing  aims ;  else  we  might  decide,  perhaps, 
that,  as  a  primary  object  of  pursuit,  ease  is  more  ignoble, 
and  reputation  less,  than  wealth,  which  excites  the  more 
prevailing  desire.  The  great  thing  to  be  observed  is  com- 
mon to  them  all.  They  do  not  carry  a  man  out  of  himself, 
or  show  him  any  thing  higher.  He  is  the  centre  in  which 
they  all  terminate :  he  spins  upon  his  own  axis  in  the  dark, 
ineffectually  shaping  and  rounding  his  particular  world,  but 
wheeling  round  no  glorious  orb,  feeling  no  celestial  light, 


WHERE   IS   THY  GOD  ?  225 

flushed  with  no  colors  of  morn  and  eve,  and  barren  of  sea- 
sonal foliage  and  fruit.  What  is  his  habitual  day-dream? 
What  the  conception  that  moves  before  him  in  secret  vision, 
and  strives  for  realization  ?  Is  it  the  thought  of  the  heroes 
and  the  saints  of  history  ?  or  of  friends  at  his  right  hand, 
whose  noble  spirits  shame  his  weakness  ?  Is  it  not  simply 
the  image  of  himself  easy,  himself  rich,  himself  grand  and 
famous?  This  one  corrupting  picture  is  the  substitute 
in  him  for  the  whole  pantheon  of  great  souls  ;  for  sages, 
prophets,  martyrs,  and  whatever  of  beauty  and  sanctity  has 
ever  dwelt  in  earth  or  heaven.  His  whole  system  of  desires 
is  vi\&xQ  personal  greed:  he  stands  upon  his  own  flat,  without 
an  aspiration.  Nothing  has  a  divine  right  to  him,  but  he 
has  a  human  appetite  for  all  things.  He  worships  nothing ; 
he  serves  nothing  :  if  God  were  away  and  heaven  were  not, 
it  would  make  no  difference  to  him ;  he  would  never  miss 
them :  his  life  is  Godless !  he  is  an  atheist. 

This,  in  fact,  is  the  strict  and  proper  meaning  of  the  word 
atheism ;  the  absence  from  a  man's  mind  of  any  object  of 
worship ;  so  that  he  is  left  with  nothing  above  him,  and 
lives  wholly  to  himself.  Hence  this  term,  though  often 
applied  unjustly  to  very  different  states  of  mind,  is  properly 
one  of  odium  :  for  it  is  impossible  to  contemplate  such  a 
condition  of  character  without  strong  aversion ;  or  to  con- 
ceive of  its  production  without  a  large  operation  of  moral 
and  voluntary  causes.  We  may  observe  too,  that  the  effects 
of  this  irreligion  are  as  disorganizing  in  society,  as  they  are 
debasing  to  the  individual.  It  wholly  dissolves  the  great 
tie  which  binds  men  together,  and  is  alone  capable  of  form- 
ing them  into  a  fraternity,  —  the  sentiment  of  mutual  rever- 
ence. Do  you  say,  that  among  the  servants  of  wealth  or 
of  fame  also  this  sentiment  has  place,  because  he  who  has 
little  is  found  to  admire  him  who  has  more,  and  to  wait 
upon  him  with  vast  humility  ?  He  does  no  such  thing.  He 
admires  the  lot,  but  cares  nothing  for  the  man ;  and  this 
combination  of  positive  and  negative  feelings,  —  aspiration 

15 


226  WHERE   IS   THY   GOD? 

after  another's  state  without  any  love  for  the  person  in  it, 
—  is  not  honor,  but  simply  envy.  And  as  for  the  so-called 
humility  of  the  poor  menial  in  this  career,  in  the  presence 
of  his  worldly  superior,  the  quality  has  no  right  to  a  moral, 
much  less  to  a  Christian  name.  It  is  mere  unmanliness 
arising  from  the  failure  of  self-respect  as  well  as  of  mutual 
reverence :  human  attributes  are  wholly  emptied  out  of  the 
relation,  and  human  possessions  alone  remain  to  look  one 
another  in  the  face ;  and  the  men,  losing  all  higher  signifi- 
cance, are  left  in  each  other's  presence,  as  two  degrees  of 
comparison  in  the  vocabulary  of  Mammon.  Nay,  in  many 
a  one,  this  seeming  subserviency  is  even  worse;  it  is  an 
admiration  of  himself  as  he  is  to  be^  and  no  less  full  of  pride 
than  it  is  of  meanness.  To  mistake  this  servility  for  the 
lowly  dignity  of  worship,  is  to  confound  the  slouch  of 
pauperism  touching  the  hat,  with  the  uplifted  look  of  Mary 
sitting  at  the  feet.  And  what  kind  of  community  would 
that  be,  whose  moral  composition  was  from  these  two  ele- 
ments, universal  self-seeking,  and  general  dearth  of  mutual 
reverence?  Go  to  the  heart  of  the  matter,  and  every  man 
would  be  a  centre  of  repulsion,  held  to  his  particular  sphere 
of  human  atoms  by  an  external  frame- work  of  precarious 
interests ;  instead  of  taking  his  place  in  a  system  of  natural 
attractions,  which  would  endure  though  the  world  itself 
were  to  sink  away. 

Beyond  this  stage  of  character,  which  I  have  described 
by  the  word  atheism^  the  smallest  step  introduces  us  to 
some  form  of  religion.  There  is  no  further  condition  of 
mind,  that  is  not  marked  by  the  consciousness  of  something 
spiritually  higher  ;  something  that  has  divine  right  over  us ; 
something  therefore  which,  to  say  the  least,  stands  for  us 
in  the  place  of  God.  Still,  ere  we  reach  the  limit  of  pure 
and  perfect  religion,  which  is  that  of  Christ,  there  is  an 
ample  range  of  error  and  imperfection,  which  may  be  desig- 
nated by  the  general  name  of  idolatry.  This  offence  against 
truth  is  far  from  being  an  obsolete  historical  affair,  that  is 


WHERE   IS    THY   GOD?  227 

gone  out  with  the  Old  Testament,  and  of  no  concern  except 
to  missionaries  now.  It  abounds  (taking  the  strictest  and 
most  philosophic  meaning  of  the  term)  in  every  Christian 
land,  and  every  Christian  sect ;  though  it  certainly  constitutes 
a  partial  apostasy  from  the  true  faith  of  Christendom.  To 
make  this  plain,  let  me  ask  you  to  reflect,  what  is  the  real 
essence  of  idolatry,  and  how  we  are  to  distinguish  it  from 
pure  religion. 

Some  will  affirm,  that  true  worship  addresses  itself  direct 
to  the  living  God  himself;  appearing  before  him  face  to  face, 
and  discerning  him  as  he  is  in  his  own  nature;  while  idola- 
try interposes,  before  the  eye  of  the  body  or  the  mind,  some 
image,  which  is  not  God,  but  only  represents  him. 

It  is,  however,  impossible  to  rest  the  distinction  thus, 
upon  the  absence  of  sjinbol  in  one  case,  and  its  presence  in 
the  other ;  for  it  is  equally  found  in  both,  and  is  wholly  in- 
dispensable to  religion  itself.  On  these  terms,  we  should  all 
(not  men  alone,  but  angels  too)  be  idolaters  alike.  For  God, 
being  infinite,  can  never  be  fully  comprehended  by  our  minds : 
whatever  thought  of  him  be  there  his  real  nature  must  still 
transcend  :  there  will  yet  be  deep  after  deep  beyond,  with- 
in that  light  ineffable  ;  and  what  we  see,  compared  with 
what  we  do  not  see,  will  be  as  the  rain-drop  to  the  firma- 
ment. Our  conception  of  him  can  never  correspond  with 
the  reality^  so  as  to  be  without  omission,  disproportion,  or 
aberration  ;  but  can  only  represent  the  reality^  and  stand  for 
God  within  our  souls,  till  nobler  thoughts  arise  and  reveal 
themselves  as  his  interpreters.  And  this  is  precisely  what 
we  mean  by  a  symbolical  idea.  The  devotee  who  prostrates 
himself  before  a  black  stone,  —  the  Egyptian  who  in  his 
prayers  was  haunted  by  the  ideal  form  of  the  graceful  ibis 
or  the  monstrous  sphinx,  —  the  theist  who  bends  beneath 
the  starry  porch  that  midnight  opens  to  the  temple  of  the 
universe,  —  the  Christian  who  sees  in  heaven  a  spirit  akin  to 
that  which  divinely  lived  in  Galilee,  and  with  glorious  pity 
died  on  Calvary ;  —  all  alike  assume  a  representation  of  Him 


228  WHERE   IS   THY   GOD? 

whose  immeasurable  nature  they  can  neither  compass  nor 
escape.  And  the  only  question  is,  whether  the  conception 
they  portray  upon  the  wall  of  their  ideal  temple,  is  an 
abominable  idol,  or  a  true  and  sanctifying  mediatorial 
thought. 

Others,  who  admit  the  necessity  of  representative  ideas 
in  religion,  will  say  that  idolatry  consists  in  making  the 
symbol  visible^  while  true  religion  leaves  it  mental  and 
invisible. 

Yet  it  could  hardly  be  deemed  impossible  for  a  blind  man 
to  be  an  idolater :  superstition  and  sin  are  not  to  be  escaped 
through  mere  physical  privation.  And  if  an  image,  present 
to  the  mind's  eye  alone,  suffices  to  constitute  an  idol,  then 
nothing  remains  for  true  religion,  but  to  think  in  mere 
abstractions ;  to  worship,  not  a  thinking,  ruling,  loving, 
holy  Being^  but  thought,  and  power,  and  love,  and  holiness 
themselves  ;  to  adore,  not  a  divine  Architect  of  creation, 
but  the  bare  skill  itself  of  the  architecture ;  to  avoid  all 
approach  to  impersonation  of  divine  attributes,  and  to  fly, 
as  from  a  sin,  before  the  uprising  of  a  concrete  and  a  living 
God.  Yet,  I  need  not  say,  this  is  an  impossible  and  untena- 
ble state  of  mind  :  the  aim  at  it  is  that  which  constitutes  a 
lifeless  pantheism  ;  and  the  mere  poetical  contemplation  of 
nature  does  not  deepen  into  the  adoring  service  of  God,  till 
we  feel  creation  and  life  to  be  at  the  disposal  of  a  present 
Mind,  a  personal  and  moral  Will,  with  absolute  love  of  good 
and  perfect  abhorrence  of  evil,  with  distinct  and  self-direct- 
ing activity,  to  which  the  laws,  the  order,  the  beauty,  the 
scale,  the  progression,  the  issues  of  all  things,  are  devoutly 
referred.  And  wherever  such  a  faith  exists,  there  is  a  con- 
ception in  the  mind,  as  truly  representative  and  as  little  re- 
strained within  the  limits  of  abstract  thought,  as  the  notion 
we  may  entertain  of  a  character  in  history  whom  we  have 
never  seen,  or  of  an  angel  in  heaven  whom  we  cannot  see. 
There  is  no  one  even,  through  whose  prayers  and  medita- 
tions transient  lights  of  beauty  and  floating  fringes  of  im- 


WHERE  IS  THY  GOD  ?  229 

agery  will  not  be  found  to  pass  ;  nor  is  it  in  mortal  thought 
otherwise  to  realize  the  majesty,  the  purity,  the  constancy, 
the  tenderness  of  God. 

The  genuine  characteristic  of  all  idolatry,  then,  can  only 
be  found  in  this :  that  the  symbol  it  adopts  in  worship  is 
a  false  and  needlessly  partial  representation  of  the  divine 
nature ;  while  pure  religion  holds  to  one  which  is  true  and 
perfect^  wanting  of  the  reality,  not  in  the  quality  of  its  spirit, 
but  only  in  the  scale  of  its  dimensions.  Our  minds  are  so 
ill-proportioned,  and  through  ignorance  and  evil  violate  so 
much  the  proper  symmetry  of  a  spiritual  nature,  that,  left 
to  their  own  wilful  w^ays,  they  misrepresent  to  us  the  true 
essence  of  perfection  ;  and  many  an  image  does  our  adoring 
fancy  grave,  and  then  obey,  which  cannot  innocently  stand 
in  the  place  of  God,  and  supplants  a  worship  of  diviner 
right.  Thus,  there  is  the  philosopher's  idol,  shaped  and 
set  up  by  intellect  unsanctified  of  conscience.  To  this  is 
attracted  an  exclusive  reverence  for  wisdom,  thought  and 
skill :  the  votary  has  learned  how  little  is  all  he  knows,  and 
stands  with  serene  aspiration  before  the  presence  of  Infinite 
Reason ;  unconscious  meanwhile  of  his  children  neglected 
at  his  feet,  and  the  cries  of  humanity  bleeding  near  him  in 
the  dusL  There  is  the  artist's  idol,  portrayed  upon  the 
wall  of  nature  with  the  pencil  of  beauty,  and  reflecting  a 
flush  of  loveliness  over  heaven  and  earth :  many  a  glorious 
soul  has  bowed  down  before  this,  and  been  inspired  by  it 
to  do  great  and  wondrous  things ;  yet  how  often  betrayed 
at  the  same  time  into  passionate  license,  and  mean  peevish- 
ness! There  is  the  stoic's  idol,  chiselled  by  austere  con- 
science, from  the  granitic  masses  of  spiritual  strength,  and 
worshipped  as  the  image  of  divine  justice,  majesty  and 
holiness.  This  has  w^on  and  held  captive  the  noblest  spirits 
that  are  not  wholly  Christian,  and  glorified  them  to  a  manli- 
ness approaching  something  divine  ;  yet  wanting  still  the 
mellowing  of  pity,  and  the  grace  of  sweet  and  glad  affec- 
tions.   And  there  is  the  woman! s  idol,  with  Madonna  look, 


230  WHERE   IS   THY   GOD? 

captivating  to  gentler  minds ;  embodying  and  awakening 
the  reverence  for  mercy  and  disinterested  love;  and,  by 
omission,  enfeebling  the  severe  healthfulness  of  duty,  and 
merging  the  struggling  heroism  of  this  life  in  the  glorified 
saiutship  of  another.  All  these  are  but  delusive  impersona- 
tions of  separated  attributes  of  God  ;  of  his  intellect ;  his 
creative  thought ;  his  will ;  his  affectionateness.  They 
are  mutilated  representations  of  his  nature  ;  idols  of  the 
worshipper's  heart,  the  serving  of  which  will  rather  confirm 
and  exaggerate,  than  remedy,  the  defective  proportions  of 
his  soul ;  elevating  him  indeed  above  himself,  but  still  leav- 
ing him  below  his  powers.  Nor  is  there  any  security  against 
this  devotion  to  idols  of  the  mind,  except  that  which  Heaven 
itself  has  furnished  to  all  Christendom;  the  reverential 
acceptance  of  Christ  as  the  highest  image  of  the  invisible 
God,  the  complete  and  finished  representation  of  his  moral 
perfections.  Here,  nothing  is  exuberant,  nothing  deficient ; 
here  prevails  a  harmony  of  spirit  absolute  and  divine.  In 
the  Eternal  Providence  that  rules  us,  reason  can  conceive, 
conscience  can  demand,  affection  can  discern,  nothing  which 
has  not  its  expression  in  the  author  and  perfecter  of  faith. 
In  worshipping  the  combination  of  attributes,  through  which 
he  has  shown  us  the  Father,  there  can  be  no  fear  that  any , 
duty  will  be  forgotten,  any  taste  corrupted,  any  aspiration 
laid  asleep.  Drawn  upward  by  such  an  object,  nothing  in 
us  can  remain  low  and  weak :  the  simplicity  of  the  child, 
the  strength  of  the  man,  the  love  of  the  woman,  the  thought 
of  the  sage,  the  courage  of  the  martyr,  the  elevation  of  the 
saint,  the  purity  of  the  angel,  press  and  strive  to  unite  and 
realize  themselves  within  our  souls.  Standing  before  a  God, 
of  whose  mind  the  universe,  of  whose  spirit  the  Man  of 
Nazareth,  is  the  accepted  symbol,  we  must  become,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  sincerity  and  depth  of  our  devotion,  trans- 
figured with  the  divinest  glory  of  reason  and  affection,  that 
can  rest  upon  a  nature  like  ours ;  and  raised  to  a  compre- 
hension of  that  "  love  of  Christ  which  passeth  knowledge," 


WHERE   IS   THY   GOD?  231 

our  souls  must  not  only  attain  a  fairer  proportion,  but  ex- 
pand also  to  nobler  dimensions,  as  they  become  "  filled  with 
the  fulness  of  God." 

Thus,  "to  as  many  as  receive  him,"  does  Christ  "give 
power  to  become  sons  of  God."  By  such  worship  is  the 
nature  of  the  individual  disciple  glorified.  And  what  is 
true  of  a  single  mind,  is  no  less  true  of  communities  of  men. 
They  also  have  their  atheisms,  and  their  several  idolatries  ; 
from  which  they  too  can  be  recalled  and  preserved  only  in 
proportion  as  they  find  their  principle  of  combination,  and 
their  mode  of  action,  in  the  deep  love  and  reverence  of  the 
perfectness  of  Christ.  No  age,  since  the  Reformation,  has 
been  so  marked  by  idol-worship  as  our  own ;  —  so  prolific 
of  favorite  and  one-sided  schemes  of  social  improvement, 
founded  on  the  sense  of  some  solitary  want  of  human  nature, 
but  barren  of  good  from  neglect  of  all  the  rest.  Our  Chris- 
tianity is  no  longer  catholic,  rich  in  provisions  for  the  whole 
faculties  and  being  of  man.  With  the  expansion  and  com- 
plication of  our  life,  religion  has  lost  its  comprehensive  grasp 
of  all  the  elements  of  our  well-being,  and  permitted  them 
to  escape  and  break  up  in  mischievous  analysis,  and  consign 
themselves  to  separate  trusts.  In  answer  to  the  earnest  cry 
of  society,  "  What  shall  we  do  to  be  saved  from  all  our  mis- 
eries and  sins?"  there  are  countless  fragmentary  answers, 
in  place  of  the  deep  full  harmony  of  response,  from  the  soul 
of  Christian  inspiration.  "  Give  us  more  bread,"  says  one  ; 
"  more  money,"  says  a  second  ;  "  more  churches,  more  belief, 
more  priests,"  say  others  in  their  turn ;  and  not  the  least 
intelligent  and  worthy  will  exclaim  for  the  diminution  of 
distilleries,  or  the  multiplication  of  schools.  For  my  own 
part,  I  believe  that  human  nature  is  not  like  a  house,  which 
you  may  build  up  piecemeal,  —  first  the  stone,  then  the 
wood,  —  to  its  true  finish  and  proportion ;  but,  rather,  like 
the  lily  or  the  tree,  which  grow  in  all  parts,  —  the  stem,  the 
root,  the  leaf,  —  at  once,  and  keep  a  constant  symmetry.  It 
must  be  nourished  and  unfolded  simultaneously  in  all  its 


282  WHERE  IS  THY  GOD? 

dimensions,  or  its  enlargement  is  mere  distortion  and  dis- 
ease. There  is  truth  with  those  who  idolize  the  physical 
means  of  augmenting  the  comforts  of  the  people  ;  but  it  is 
only  the  truth  which  lurked  in  the  foul  Egyptian  adoration 
of  the  prolific  powers  of  nature.  There  is  truth  with  those 
who  trust  in  the  ameliorating  energy  of  knowledge  and  of 
art ;  but  it  is  the  truth  which  filled  Athens  with  the  worship 
of  the  wise  Minerva,  and  which  left  it  still,  in  the  estimate 
of  the  Christian  apostle,  "  in  all  things  too  superstitious." 
There  is  truth  with  those  who  say  we  want  more  faith  and 
devout  obedience ;  but  if  the  temple  of  our  life  be  denied 
the  light  of  thought,  then,  though  every  man  stands,  saint- 
like, with  his  censer  in  his  hand,  he  will  just  repeat  "  what 
the  elders  of  Israel  did  in  the  dark,"  —  send  up  his  foolish 
cloud  of  incense  before  "creeping  things  and  abominable 
beasts."  Society,  to  avoid  corruption  in  any  of  these 
agencies,  must  concurrently  avail  itself  of  all.  And  there 
is  no  power,  which  embraces  them  all,  and  assigns  to  each 
its  proper  rank,  except  that  divine  religion  which  makes 
Christ  the  model  and  the  end  of  life.  Trusting  to  inferior 
forces,  we  shall  find  that  each  is  blind  to  all  that  lies  above 
it,  and  provides  for  the  world  only  up  to  its  own  level.  But 
Christian  faith,  in  aiming  at  once  at  the  highest  elements 
of  good,  necessarily  includes  the  lowest;  it  contains  within 
itself  an  epitome  of  all  the  parts  of  human  perfection ;  and 
in  the  heart  of  a  nation,  as  of  a  man,  it  is  the  grand  source 
of  moral  salubiity  and  inextinguishable  hope.  In  proportion 
as  they  have  receded  from  this,  have  states  and  generations 
slipped  into  thraldom  to  partial  theories  and  unworthy  aims; 
and  in  the  devouring  haste  of  gain,  or  the  mad  passion  for 
war,  or  the  blindness  of  mutual  distrust,  have  brought  down 
the  weighty  penalties  by  which  Heaven  recalls  society  from 
its  unfaithfulness.  But  while  the  image  of  Christ  remains 
as  the  central  and  holy  light  of  every  home,  the  moral  de- 
lusions that  waste  a  people's  strength  can  find  no  place  of 
entrance ;  and  moderate  desires  in  private  life,  with  a  para- 


WHERE  IS   THY  GOD?  233 

mount  sense  of  justice  in  the  state ;  —  guardianship  over  the 
weak,  with  vigilance  against  the  strong ;  care  of  neglected 
childhood,  reverence  for  lingering  age,  and  a  share  of  will- 
ing honor  for  all  men  ;  with  a  hearty  homage  to  all  truth 
as  the  reflected  light,  and  duty  as  the  express  law  of  God, 
must  characterize  and  consolidate  that  happy  people,  from 
whom  no  cloud  of  idol-incense  yet  hides  the  beauty  of  the 
Son  of  Man. 


XXIV. 
THE   SORROW  WITH  DOWNWARD  LOOK. 


Mark  x.  20-22. 

and  he  answered  and  said  unto  him,  "master,  all  these  things 
have  i  observed  from  my  youth."  then  jesus,  beholding  him, 
loved  him,  and  said  unto  him,  "  one  thing  thou  lackest  ;  go  thy 
way,  sell  whatsoever  thou  hast,  and  give  to  the  poor,  and 
thou  shalt  have  treasure  in  heaven  j  and  come,  take  up  the 
cross,  and  follow  me."  and  he  was  sad  at  that  saying,  and 
went  away  grieved  ;  for  he  had  great  possessions. 

What  made  this  young  man  retire  in  sorrow  from  before 
the  face  of  Christ  ?  Tliat  the  demand  made  upon  him  was 
quite  irrational,  all  political  economists  would  confidently 
assure  him.  That  he  had  every  reason  to  be  satisfied  with 
a  life  so  pure  and  orderly,  would  be  declared  by  every 
worthy  neighbor  and  all  judicious  divines.  And  if  he 
carried  home  with  him  any  traces  of  the  sadness  with  which 
he  turned  from  the  eye  of  Jesus,  no  doubt  he  was  cheered 
up,  as  far  as  might  be,  by  the  loving  rebukes  of  wife  or 
friends,  chiding  his  misgivings,  and  laughing  his  thoughtful- 
ness  away.  If  a  man  who  keeps  all  the  commandments  may 
not  be  happy,  who  may  I  With  a  memory  clear  of  reproach 
from  the  youth  up,  whence  can  he  have  drawn  the  cloud  to 
shade  so  innocent  a  soul  ?  All  the  sources  of  inyvard  care 
and  conflict  seem  to  be  excluded  here ;  and  we  appear  to 
have  the  perfect  representative  of  a  life  at  peace.  To  say 
nothing  of  the  ruler's  jn-operty,  which  was  ample  for  exter- 
nal comfort,  he  had  fulfilled  the  one  grand  requisite  of  moral 
contentment  and  repose ;  he  had  established  a  harmony 
between  his  perceptions  and  bis  actions,  and  framed  his 


THE  SORROW   WITH  DOWNWARD  LOOK.  235 

modes  of  conduct  by  his  sentiments  of  right.  Now  there  is, 
apparently,  no  other  condition  of  inward  peace  than  this. 
All  men  feel  the  worth  of  the  spiritual  affections  that  solicit 
them,  and  revere  the  obligation  of  the  better  to  exclude  the 
worse.  All  men  feel  also  the  comparative  strength  of  these 
same  affections,  and  find  in  some  a  power  which  others 
ineffectually  dispute.  Wherever  the  order  of  strength 
agrees  exactly  with  the  order  of  worth ;  wherever  the  desire 
known  to  be  the  highest  is  also  the  most  intense,  and  no 
brute  passion  usurps  the  throne  instead  of  serving  as  the 
footstool ;  wherever  the  habits  are  shaped  and  proportioned 
by  the  scale  of  excellence  and  beauty  within ;  there,  strife 
and  sorrow  cannot  be ;  there,  is  the  glad  consent  between 
hand  and  heart,  the  concord  between  our  worship  and  our 
will,  which  charms  away  the  approach  of  care.  This  har- 
mony may  be  attained  in  either  of  two  ways :  by  tuning  up 
the  life  to  the  key-note  of  thought ;  or  by  letting  down  the 
thought  to  the  pitch  of  the  actual  life.  He  who  will  persist- 
ently follow  his  highest  impulses  and  convictions,  who  will 
trust  only  these  amid  noisier  claims,  and  constrain  himself 
to  go  with  them  alike  in  their  faintness  and  their  might, 
shall  not  find  his  struggle  everlasting  :  his  wrestlings  shall 
become  fewer  and  less  terrible  :  the  hand  of  God,  so  dim  to 
him  and  doubtful  at  the  first,  shall  in  the  end  be  the  only 
thing  that  is  clear  and  sure  :  his  best  shall  be  his  strongest 
too.  But  this,  which  is  a  holy  peace,  is  not  the  only  rest 
open  to  the  contradictions  of  our  nature.  There  is  also  an 
escape  from  discord  by  an  inverse  and  descending  path. 
And  if  a  man  will  steadily  follow  his  strongest  impulses, 
without  regard  to  their  vileness  or  their  worth,  will  give  no 
heed  to  any  whispering  compunction,  will  do  only  and 
always  what  he  likes  ;  from  him  too  the  jarring  and  conflict 
of  nature  shall  pass  away :  God's  spirit  will  not  always  strive 
with  him,  to  turn  his  wilful  steps  :  the  angels  that  beset  his 
path  with  entreaty,  with  protest,  with  defiance,  will  thin  off 
till  they  are  seen  no  more :  he  will  enjoy  a  cheerful  and 


236  THE   SORROW  WITH  DOWNWARD   LOOK. 

comfortable  exemption  from  any  thing  divine ;  and,  by 
withdrawal  of  all  else,  his  strongest  affections  will  become 
his  best.  So  far  as  mere  ease  and  pleasure  are  concerned, 
there  is  not  perhaps  much  to  choose  between  these  two 
opposite  modes  of  self-reconciliation.  If  a  man  resolves  to 
disown  the  upper  region  of  his  nature,  he  may  find  enter- 
tainment, if  that  be  all,  in  the  lower ;  and  care  may  be  made 
to  fly  before  the  gas-lamps  and  merriment  of  the  vault,  as 
well  as  beneath  the  star-light  of  the  observatory  and  the 
silence  of  the  skies.  The  difference  is  not  sentient,  but 
moral ;  between  the  harmonies  of  the  world  above,  and  the 
enchantments  of  Circe's  isle ;  the  one,  a  music  straying  from 
the  gate  of  heaven,  and  waking  the  soul  to  share  the  vigils 
of  immortals;  the  other,  composing  it  to  sleep  upon  the 
verge  of  hell.  It  was,  however,  in  the  nobler  way  that  the 
young  man  in  the  text  had  established  his  right  to  an  un- 
anxious  life,  and  attracted  the  love  of  Christ :  he  had  con- 
formed his  habits  to  his  moral  sense,  not  sunk  his  moral 
sense  to  the  level  of  his  habits.  What  then  had  happened 
to  disturb  the  rest  arising  from  their  concord  ? 

The  truth  is,  this  young  ruler  had  had  all  the  content 
that  noble  minds  can  derive  from  the  order  of  a  well-regu- 
lated life.  He  had  come  to  the  end  of  all  such  satisfactions, 
and  found  them  fairly  spent.  They  had  become  to  him 
mere  negative  conditions  of  repose,  without  which  indeed 
he  would  sink  into  self-contempt ;  but  with  which  he  rose 
into  no  self-reverence,  and  scarce  escaped  the  hauntings  of 
a  perpetual  penitence.  He  felt  that  if  this  were  all  —  this, 
which  was  but  the  native  path  and  beaten  track  of  his  soul, 
—  the  field  of  duty  was  no  such  glorious  thing ;  and  some 
diviner  terms  might  have  been  asked,  ere  this  flat  earth 
should  win  eternal  life.  A  store  of  unexhausted  power,  a 
pressure  towards  loftier  aspiration,  led  him  to  fix  an  eager 
eye  on  Christ,  and  be  ready  for  intenser  work ;  and  to  be 
referred  only  to  the  old  commands,  and  sent  back  to  the 
familiar  task,  spread  the  dull  shade  over  his  heart  again. 


THE   SOREOW  WITH  DOWNWARD  LOOK.  237 

He  had  reached  the  stage  of  character,  which  all  men,  as 
they  are  more  faithful,  the  sooner  reach,  when  the  con- 
science breaks  out  beyond  the  life,  and  demands  a  sphere 
of  enterprise  larger  than  the  home  domain  with  all  its  settled" 
ways.  There  is,  there  can  be,  no  list  of  actions,  no  scheme 
of  habits,  that  will  permanently  represent  your  duty,  and 
stand  as  a  perpetual  diagram  of  right.  Only  while  it  is  yet 
unrealized,  while  it  rises  ideally  above  you,  and  reproaches 
your  slurred  and  broken  lines  of  order,  is  it  truly  the 
emblem  of  your  obligations  :  the  moment  you  overtake  it, 
and  fall  into  coincidence  with  it,  its  function  is  gone,  and  it 
guides  and  teaches  you  no  more  ;  it  becomes  simply  what 
you  are^  which  is  always  parted  by  an  interval  from  what 
you  ought  to  he.  Moral  excellence  is  a  state  of  the  affec- 
tions, and  must  be  measured  by  their  purity  and  depth ;  and 
in  doing  merely  what  is  habitual  the  affections  cannot  keep 
awake  :  they  live  upon  fresh  thoughts  and  demand  ever 
new  toils  :  their  eye  is  intent  upon  the  future,  drawn  thither 
by  a  holy  light ;  and  if  once  it  retires  upon  the  present,  it 
droops  into  a  fatal  sleep.  Obedience  to  a  perfect  God  can 
be  nothing  less  than  a  service  constantly  rendered  by  the 
will ;  a  voluntary  effort,  given  largely  and  ungrudgingly  in 
proportion  to  the  gratefulness  and  magnanimity  of  the  soul, 
and  not  therefore  stinted  in  the  angel,  while  it  is  lavished 
in  the  man.  But  from  all  that  is  customary  the  living  forces 
of  the  w^ill  retire ;  achieving  ease,  it  loses  sanctity :  it  is  a 
slain  victim,  acceptable  to-day,  unclean  to-morrow  ;  for  God 
will  have  at  his  altar  the  very  breath  and  blood  of  life,  and 
not  alone  its  shape  and  shell.  And  so  it  is,  that  there  is 
something  truly  infinite  in  duty  :  it  is  a  region  that  can 
never  be  enclosed ;  we  pitch  our  tent  upon  its  boundary 
field,  and  as  we  survey  it,  we  detect  an  ampler  realm  beyond. 
As  the  body  could,  by  no  far  travelling,  find  a  station  where 
the  arm  might  not  yet  be  stretched  forth ;  so  the  soul  can 
be  borne  by  no  progress  to  a  point  where  the  freewill  shall 
not  take  another  step.    Hence  it  is  evident  that,  in  the  mind 


238  THE   SORROW   WITH  DOWNWARD   LOOK. 

of  all  responsible  beings,  there  must  be  a  perpetual  alterna- 
tion between  two  opposite  states,  of  rest  and  unrest,  suc- 
ceeding and  reproducing  each  other.  While  the  moral 
conceptions  are  in  clear  advance  of  the  actions,  there  is  a 
secret  shame  which  forbids  repose  :  a  sense  of  sorrowful 
aspiration  impels  the  will  to  earnest  effort,  and  sends  it 
panting  after  the  divine  form  that  invites  it  on.  At  length 
faith  apd  resolution  overtake  the  iinage  ;  the  interval  is 
conquered,  and  that  which  was  a  vision  in  the  past  is  a 
reality  of  the  present :  the  outer  and  the  inner  life  concur ; 
and  for  awhile  the  healthy  joy  of  a  good  conscience  touches 
the  features  with  its  light.  But  in  this  absence  of  moral 
confusion,  and  under  the  shelter  of  a  sacred  peace,  the 
energies  of  a  pure  mind,  released  from  severer  action,  push 
forward  to  the  seizure  of  higher  thoughts.  The  conscience, 
wounded  and  bleeding  no  more,  and  cherished  by  the 
healthful  air  of  God's  approval,  is  sure  to  open  into  nobler 
dimensions.  In  truth  it  is  the  chief  good  of  a  well-ordered 
structure  of  habits  that  it  protects  the  living  soul  within, 
frees  it  from  mean  dangers,  and  gives  it  leave  to  grow. 
And  so  the  sentiments  of  duty  burst  from  their  confinement, 
and  leave  the  life  again  behind  ;  restoring  the  spirit  to  its 
strife,  till  the  intolerable  chasm  be  traversed  as  before. 
This  systole  and  diastole  of  the  moral  nature  is  as  truly 
needful  to  its  vital  action,  as  the  pulsations  of  the  heart  to 
our  physical  existence.  Only,  their  period  is  indefinitely 
various,  from  a  moment  to  a  life.  Some  men  you  may  find, 
whose  habits  aad  whose  conscience  settle  down  in  fixed 
partnership  for  this  world,  and  are  never  seen  diverging; 
not,  alas !  from  the  agility  of  their  habits,  but  from  the 
sluggishness  of  their  conscience.  Their  moral  perceptions 
are  absolutely  stationary,  or  show  them  even  less  of  heaven 
in  their  manhood  than  in  their  youth.  Doing  what  they 
think  right,  and  thinking  nothing  right  but  Avhat  they  do, 
they  approve  themselves  and  look  up  to  nothing.  They  are 
not,  however,  exempt  from  the  great  law  of  alternation ; 


THE   SORROW  WITH  DOWNWARD  LOOK.  239 

only,  its  oscillation  is  dull  and  slow ;  and  its  sweep  of  rest 
having  occupied  this  life,  its  sorrowful  return  must  begin 
another.  In  nobler  men,  the  period  of  the  soul  is  quicker : 
for  awhile,  they  fulfil  their  moral  aims,  and  after  conquest 
enjoy  the  victory  ;  they  pitch  their  tent  upon  the  field,  and, 
not  without  a  glad  thanksgiving,  accept  a  brief  repose.  But 
high  hearts  are  never  long  without  hearing  some  new  call, 
some  distant  clarion  of  God,  even  in  their  dreams :  and  soon 
they  are  observed  to  break  up  the  camp  of  ease,  and  start 
on  some  fresh  march  of  faithful  service.  And  to  such  pro- 
ductive wills  the  era  of  rest,  like  the  Creator's  Sabbath,  is  but 
as  a  sixth  —and  that  all  filled  with  hallowed  hours,  —  to  the 
working  days  whose  morning  and  evening  enclose  and  re- 
claim some  realm  of  beauty  out  of  chaos.  And  finally,  look- 
ing higher  still,  we  find  those  who  never  wait  till  their 
moral  work  accumulates,  and  who  reward  resolution  with 
no  rest ;  with  whoni  therefore  the  alternation  is  instantane- 
ous and  constant ;  who  do  the  good  only  to  see  the  better, 
and  see  the  better  only  to  achieve  it ;  who  are  tod  meek 
for  transport,  too  faithful  for  remorse,  too  earnest  for  re- 
pose ;  whose  worship  is  action,  and  whose  action  ceaseless 
aspiration. 

This  last  case,  in  which  the  law  of  alternation  has  its 
period  reduced  to  a  vanishing  interval,  fulfils  our  conception 
of  an  angel-mind.  To  higher  natures  it  belongs  to  have 
nothing  discordant,  nothing  intermittent :  their  thought 
ever  advancing,  their  will  never  lingering,  the  disturbance 
between  them  is  annihilated  as  fast  as  it  is  created  ;  and 
with  activity  more  glorious  than  ours,  they  substitute  for 
our  human  periodicity  a  diviner  constancy.  If,  as  the 
prophet's  dream  proclaims,  there  is  "no  night"  in  the 
better  world,  the  scene,  unshaded  by  the  darkness,  un- 
kindled  by  the  blaze  of  day,  is  the  fitting  residence  for 
beings  exempt  from  the  ebb  and  flow  of  energy  and  repose ; 
who  have  no  morning  and  evening  sacrifice,  but  from  whose 
fragrant  and  fervid  mind  the  cloud  of   incense  eternally 


240  THE   SORROW  WITH  DOWNWAED   LOOK. 

ascends ;  whose  affections  send  forth  no  interrupted  anthem, 
but  in  ever-living  harmony  continually  cry,  "  Holy,  Holy, 
Holy  Lord  God  Almighty,  who  art,  and  wast,  and  art  to 
come."  This  characteristic  in  our  conception  of  more  heav- 
enly natures  presents  them  to  us  under  an  aspect  of  intent, 
yet  passionless,  serenity.  We  attribute  to  them  a  perfect 
moral  beauty, —  a  godlike  symmetry  of  goodness,  —  which 
fills  us  with  reverence,  trust,  affection,  which  draws  from  us 
the  sigh  of  hope,  and  refreshes  us  in  the  weariness  of  our 
harsher  life.  But  we  ascribe  to  them  no  merit ;  we  desire 
for  them  no  reward ;  no  plaudits  burst  from  our  hearts  as 
we  meditate  their  high  career.  As  soon  almost  should  we 
think  of  applauding  the  perfectness  of  God.  A  spirit  that 
undergoes  no  struggle  is  out  of  the  sphere  of  recompense ; 
being  either  below  the  point  of  noble  strife,  so  as  not  to  de- 
serve  reward ;  or  above,  so  as  not  to  need  it.  The  perfect 
proportion  between  power  and  perception  which  we  recog- 
nize in  diviner  natures  excludes  all  idea  of  resistance:  there 
is  no  hesitation  for  volition  to  encounter ;  whatever  is  felt 
to  be  best  is  also  loved  as  dearest,  and  simply  pursued  with- 
out a  rival  in  the  thoughts.  This  entire  coalescence  of  the 
order  of  goodness  and  the  order  of  desire,  this  instant  and 
spontaneous  adaptation  of  the  will  to  the  conscience  through 
every  stage  of  moral  progression,  distinguishes  our  notion  of 
saintly  excellence,  and  furnishes  our  clearest  image  of  a 
higher  world. 

The  conditions  of  this  world,  however,  are  of  a  lower  and 
less  glorious  kind.  We  must  rise  by  successive  stages,  not 
by  perennial  flight.  We  have  always  something  to  overtake ; 
and  there  is  a  distance,  but  too  appreciable,  between  what 
we  are  and  what  we  ought  to  be,  —  between  what  we  wish 
and  what  we  reverence.  This  distance  can  be  recovered 
only  by  successive  paroxysms  of  effort,  prolonged  into  pa- 
tient perseverance.  We  cannot  hope  to  be  released  from 
this  demand  upon  our  half-reluctant  powers,  and  must  hold 
om-selves   ready,  with  resolute   alacrity,  now  to  lash  and 


THE   SORROW  WITH   DOWNWARD   LOOK.  241 

now  to  cheer  them  on.  When  we  have  fairly  won  a  point, 
and  brought  up  our  habit  to  our  conscience,  the  penitential 
interval,  destroyed  for  the  moment,  instantly  begins  to  grow 
again.  For,  while  action,  breathless  with  successful  toil,  sits 
down  to  rest,  affection,  which  has  long  been  there,  is  moving 
on.  While  our  moral  love  is  ever  in  the  future,  our  will 
becomes  entangled  in  the  past ;  detained  by  clinging  habits 
and  lulled  by  old  contentments,  it  sleeps  upon  its  triumphs 
till  it  is  surprised  by  sudden  foes.  Every  new  perception 
of  good,  every  dawning  upon  us  of  higher  obligations,  finds 
our  active  forces  pledged  and  pre-engaged  to  some  poorer 
work,  from  which  we  have  to  tear  ourselves  away.  This  it 
is  that  makes  all  human  faithfulness  not  holy  but  strenuous, 
and  constitutes  the  difference  between  the  saint  and  the 
hero.  In  proportion  to  the  resistance  which  is  felt,  and  the 
effort  set  up  against  it,  in  proportion  to  the  strength  of  nat- 
ural desire  which  is  put  aside  for  its  inferior  worth,  — is  the 
virtue  admitted  to  be  noble  and  heroic :  we  praise  it  with  a 
glad  and  glorious  heart :  we  celebrate  it  as  a  triumph  ;  and 
cry  —  what  we  could  never  say  to  angel  or  to  God,  —  "  Well 
done ! "  The  sentiment  seems  to  imply  that  the  achieve- 
ment is  something  more  than  could  be  expected.  But  if 
such  crisis  of  conflict  comes  to  ourselves,  we  know  well  that 
it  is  not  in  our  option  to  shrink  from  it  with  innocence ; 
that  to  discern  a  moral  good  as  possible,  is  to  come  under 
the  obligation  to  make  it  real.  And  if  the  effort  is  faith- 
lessly declined,  there  inevitably  creeps  upon  us,  first,  an 
ignominious  sorrow ;  and  next,  a  sadder  and  more  fatal  loss 
of  the  sorrow,  and  of  all  true  worship  of  the  heart. 

This  first  grief  it  was  that  took  the  young  ruler  with 
mournful  steps  away :  and  an  anticipation  of  the  second  that 
led  Jesus  to  look  on  him  with  a  boundless  pity.  Christ  saw 
in  him  the  soul,  which,  if  it  could  but  be  the  hero,  would 
become  the  angel ;  if  not,  would  sink,  with  many  an  inef- 
fectual horror,  into  infinite  depths.  The  man's  early  life 
had  enabled  him  to  see,  what  was  hidden  from  consciences 

IG 


242  THE   SORROW   WITH   DOWNWARD   LOOK. 

more  confused,  the  divine  perfectness  of  Christ.  The  chief 
value  of  his  good  ways,  of  his  steady  heed  to  the  com- 
mandments, was  that  it  just  brought  him  favorably  to  this 
very  moment,  and  set  him  with  open-eyed  perception  before 
Messiah's  face.  By  the  vision  of  so  holy  a  spirit,  as  it 
passed  near  him,  he  had  caught  the  feeling  of  a  higher 
life  than  that  of  well-ordered  habit  ;  had  been  irresist- 
ibly drawn  to  put  the  question  so  fatal  to  his  peace ;  had 
heard  his  own  consciousness  repeated,  and  sent  like  a  bell- 
stroke  to  his  heart,  in  the  deep  words,  "  Yet  lackest  thou 
one  thing ; "  yet  withal  he  had  not  strength  to  follow,  and 
went  away  with  the  cloud  settled  on  his  spirit.  And  once 
having  seen  and  refused  a  better  life,  he  finds  that  the 
merely  good  life,  adequate  before,  has  lost  all  its  sacred- 
ness.  Henceforth  it  is  without  a  charm,  and  empty  of 
every  inspiration ;  and  lies  before  him  with  dead  and 
leaden  aspect,  tinged  with  no  glory,  and  promising  no  heaven. 
And  every  mind  of  imperfect  earnestness  has  to  bear  a  like 
burden  of  sorrow  ;  —  not  the  Christ-like  sorrow  of  infinite 
aspiration,  chasing  a  good  it  cannot  fully  overtake  ;  for  that 
is  a  sorrow  with  upward  look,  piercing  the  heavens  with  a 
gaze  of  prayer :  —  but  the  shameful  sorrow  of  penitent  in- 
firmity, retreating  from  the  good  it  has  refused  to  follow ; 
a  sorrow  with  ever  downcast  look,  to  which  the  heavens  are 
hid,  and  the  earth  bereft  of  beauty  and  soiled  with  common 
dust. 

All  men  are  liable  to  this  grievous  experience ;  for  all  are 
visited  by  gleams  of  s  jmething  fairer  and  more  faithful  than 
their  own  lives.  But  those  are  most  fearfully  exposed  to  it, 
who  have  the  dangerous  yet  glorious  gift  of  high  powers 
and  opportunities.  Had  Christ  never  crossed  the  path  of 
that  youth  of  great  possessions,  his  imagination  would  have 
remained  without  its  divinest  picture,  and  his  conscience 
without  its  deadliest  reproach.  Or  had  he  been  rich  only, 
and  not  thoughtful  too,  he  might  have  passed  that  conse- 
crated figure  by,  and  felt  no  shadow  fall  on  his  content. 


THE   SORROW  WITH   DOWNWARD   LOOK.  243 

The  privilege  and  the  sadness  came  together.  And  those 
who  are  haunted  by  no  visions  of  higher  good,  who  see  only 
what  the  sun  or  moon  may  shine  upon;  —  on  whom  no  lifted 
veil  lets  in  the  splendors  so  kindling  to  the  nobler  reason, 
so  fatal  to  the  feeble  will,  —  escape  the  sighs  of  bitterest 
regret.  Whoso  is  placed  of  God  upon  the  loftiest  heights, 
is'  on  the  verge  of  the  most  enshadowed  chasms.  The  reve- 
lations of  thought  and  conscience  are  awful  privileges,  vainly 
coveted  by  profane  ambition,  and,  even  to  the  devout  and 
wise,  safe  only  when  received  with  pure  self-renunciation. 
The  richest  lights  that  fall  upon  the  soul  lie  next  to  the 
deepest  tones  of  shade.  Messiah's  first  gaze  of  divine  affec- 
tion on  the  half-earnest  youth  would  doubtless  send  through 
his  heart  a  hopeful  joy  :  but  afterwards,  when  he  had  lapsed 
into  the  old  and  common  self,  that  very  glance  would  become 
a  terrible  remembrance.  And  so  is  it  with  us  all :  every 
light  of  moral  beauty,  permitted  to  enter,  but  not  allowed 
to  guide  us,  becomes,  like  the  after-image  of  the  sun  when 
idly  stared  at,  a  dark  speck  upon  the  soul,  which  follows 
us  at  all  our  work,  adheres  to  every  object,  approaches 
and  recedes  in  dreams,  and  is  neither  evaded  by  movement, 
nor  washed  out  by  tears.  If  the  fairest  gifts  are  not  to  be 
turned  into  haunting  griefs,  it  can  only  be  by  following  in 
the  ways  of  duty  and  denial  along  which  they  manifestly 
lead;  and,  while  yet  they  look  upon  us,  like  the  eye  of 
Christ,  with  a  sacred  love,  resolving  on  that  quiet  self- 
surrender,  which  shall  meet  their  solemn  claim,  and  prevent 
our  ever  hearing  again  the  words,  "  Yet  lackest  thou  one 
thing." 


XXV. 

THE   SHADOW  OF  DEATH. 


Phiijppians  I.  21. 

FOR  TO  MB,  TO  LIVB  IS  CHRIST,   AND  TO  DIE  IS  GAIN. 

It  is  natural  to  conclude  that  one  who  could  feel  death  to 
be  a  gain,  must  have  had  few  treasures  in  life  to  lose.  The 
sentiment  evidently  belongs  to  a  heart  that  had  either  out- 
lived the  objects  of  affection  and  favorite  pursuit ;  or  else 
had  loved  little,  while  capable  of  loving  much,  and  was 
unattached  to  the  scene  of  human  existence  except  at  its 
points  of  duty.  It  is  perfectly  conceivable  that  a  mind  dis- 
engaged from  external  realities,  keeping  together  and  entire 
in  its  own  feelings,  interested  most  profoundly  in  the  ab- 
stractions of  its  own  faith  and  hope,  may  welcome  the  tran- 
sition to  another  form  of  being,  in  which  it  wdll  retain  its 
individuality  complete,  and  be  surrounded  by  new  objects 
tempting  it  at  length  to  open  forth.  He  that  has  no  deep 
root  in  this  world,  may  suffer  transplantation  without  pain. 
And  thus  it  was  with  Paul.  His  ardent  and  generous  soul 
had  fastened  itself  on  no  one  living  object,  but  on  an  abstrac- 
tion, a  thing  of  his  own  mind,  the  truth.  For  half  his  life 
a  wanderer  over  the  earth,  no  place  looked  up  at  him  with  a 
domestic  eye.  Called  as  he  was  into  ever  new  society,  and 
passing  rapidly  through  all  orders  of  men ;  accustomed  to 
study  in  quick  succession  the  feelings  of  slave  and  philoso- 
pher, of  Jew,  of  Asiatic,  of  Athenian  and  Roman,  his  per- 
sonal sympathies  were  disciplined  to  promptitude  rather 
than  to  profundity.     He  rested  nowhere  long  enough  to 


THE    SHADOW   OF   DEATH.  245 

feel'  tis  nature  silently  yet  irrevocably  depositing  itself 
there ;  but  was  at  all  times  ready  to  gather  up  his  feelings 
and  pass  on.  Christ  and  God,  the  objects  of  his  most  earn- 
est love,  were  viewless  and  ideal  here,  and  would  become 
realities  only  when  death  had  transferred  him  to  the  future. 
It  is  true  that  a  noble  attachment  bound  him  to  his  disci- 
ples ;  but  he  loved  them,  less  in  their  individual  persons  and 
for  their  own  sakes,  than  as  depositaries  of  the  truth,  —  as 
links  of  a  living  chain  of  minds  by  which  that  truth  would 
complete  its  circuit,  and  find  a  passage  for  its  renovating 
power.  Nor  was  there  any  thing  in  his  outward  condition 
to  which  his  desires  could  eagerly  cling.  The  world,  as  a 
place  of  shelter,  had  been  spoiled  for  him  by  the  gospel: 
his  pure  tastes  were  revolted,  his  sympathies  stung  at  every 
turn :  at  Jerusalem,  the  impending  fate  of  friends  and  coun- 
try brooded  on  his  spirit  like  a  cloud :  in  Rome,  the  springs 
of  social  enjoyment  were  poisoned  by  the  penetrating  taint 
of  a  voluptuous  polytheism ;  at  every  table  was  the  altar,  on 
every  tongue  the  light  oath,  of  idolatry.  In  every  aspect 
society  presented  a  scene,  not  for  rest,  but  for  toil :  not  to 
be  enjoyed,  but  to  be  reformed :  it  offered  no  place  where 
the  Christian  might  innocently  retreat  within  the  sanctity 
of  a  home;  but  summoned  him  forth,  in  the  spirit  of  an 
earnest  and  almost  impatient  benevolence,  to  purchase,  by 
his  own  good  fight  of  persuasion  and  of  faith,  a  fuller  23urity 
and  peace  for  coming  times.  In  this  noble  conflict,  life 
afforded  *  to  Paul  the  satisfactions  of  moral  victory ;  but 
death  offered  the  persecuted  Apostle  the  only  prospect  of 
personal  release :  from  the  prison  it  would  transfer  him  to 
the  skies ;  and  the  fetters  would  fall  from  his  hand  in  the 
freedom  of  immortality. 

That  Paul,  thus  insulated  from  earthly  attachments,  should 
feel  a  deeper  interest  in  the  future  than  in  the  present,  is 
perfectly  natural.  But  when  Christians  take  up  this  feeling 
as  essential  to  every  disciple  ;  —  when  they  proclaim  it  a  sol- 
emn duty  to  postpone  every  human  feeling  to  the  attrac- 


246  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH. 

tions  of  the  eternal  state;  —  when  they  say,  "  it  is  not  enough 
to  take  the  promises  to  your  heart  as  true  comfort  in  your 
sorrow,  but  even  in  glad  scenes  of  life,  in  youth,  amid  the 
ties  of  nature,  in  the  very  jubilee  of  the  affections,  you  must 
yearn  towards  heaven  more  than  to  the  world,  and  feel 
that  to  go  is  far  better  than  to  stay ; "  —  they  are  guilty  of 
an  insincere  and  mischievous  parody  on  the  sentiments  of 
the  Apostle.  If  we  are  to  believe  the  rhapsodies  of  a  prev- 
alent fanaticism,  no  one  has  any  vital  religion,  who  does  not 
think  the  world  a  waste,  and  life  a  burden,  and  all  human 
affections  snares  of  sin :  whose  impressions  of  God,  and 
emotions  towards  Christ,  do  not  far  transcend  in  their  inten- 
sity the  love  of  kindred  and  of  men ;  and  who  do  not,  in  all 
earnest  moments  of  reflection,  sigh  for  the  hour  which  shall 
rescue  them  from  their  mortality.  If  a  shade  creeps  upon 
the  countenance  at  the  consciousness  that  youth  departs, 
and  that  the  foot  has  already  entered  the  declining  path ; 
if  we  cannot  think  of  the  wreck  of  vigor  without  regret,  or 
look  into  a  grave  without  a  sigh ;  if  we  manifest  in  any  way 
that  the  mystery  of  mortality  presses  upon  our  hearts  to 
sadden  tliem;  —  the  only  comfort  that  is  offered  us  is,  that 
we  can  have  no  real  Christianity  within  us ;  and,  since  we 
shrink  from  the  thouglit  of  death  so  much,  and  yearn  for 
heaven  so  little,  we  must  expect  the  retribution  tliat  never 
ends.  Even  those  who  hold  a*  creed  more  merciful  than  this, 
regard  such  feelings  with  grave  disapprobation,  and  suppose 
them  to  have  their  root  in  distrust  of  Providence,  and  doubts 
of  immortality.  Yet  the  human  heart  quietly  vindicates  its 
own  right,  and  still  weeps  for  death  :  the  last  hour  is  still 
felt  to  be  a  trial,  not  a  joy,  —  a  fitting  time  for  resignation 
and  meek  trust,  ^not  for  transport ;  and  to  bear  it  well  is 
held  suflScient  proof  of  a  good  and  faithful  hope.  In  spite 
of  the  imagined  eagerness  to  depart  and  be  with  Christ, 
even  the  elect  preserve  their  mortal  life  with  no  less  care 
than  the  unbeliever  ;  and  religious  suicides,  in  impatience 
for  an  assured  salvation,  are  crimes  unheard  of  yet :  nor  is 


THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.  247 

the  funeral  converted  yet  from  a  scene  of  grief  into  an  ova- 
tion. It  is  obvious  then  that  in  this  assumption  of  the 
apostolic  sentiment  there  is  a  latent  insincerity,  —  an  un- 
conscious self-delusion,  —  as  indeed  there  always  is,  where 
states  of  feeling  rarely  attainable  are  insisted  on  as  essential 
duties.  Unhappily,  this  hollow  and  inflated  religion  is  far 
from  being  a  harmless  self-deception.  Sarcastic  sagacity 
sees  its  emptiness  and  scoifs.  Minds  affectionate  and  re- 
fined are  revolted  by  a  faith,  calling  for  the  excision  of 
human  affections  which  are  an  integral  portion  of  their  life, 
and  scowling  on  that  lofty  melancholy  which  has  been  often 
declared  inseparable  from  superior  natures.  And  thus  the 
profession  of  religion,  in  its  more  earnest  form,  is  apt  to 
be  found  in  association  with  the  cold  heart  that,  caring  but 
slightly  for  any  thing  here,  gains  an  easy  credit  for  sublimer 
aspirations  ;  that  reviles  a  scene  of  existence  to  whose  beauty 
it  is  insensible,  and  plumes  itself  on  freedom  from  human 
attachments,  which  it  is  not  noble  enough  to  feel ;  that  has 
no  better  way  of  clothing  the  heaven  above  with  glory, 
than  by  making  the  earth  below  look  hideous.  In  order  to 
present  some  counteraction  of  conceptions  so  injurious,  it 
may  be  useful  to  define  the  actual  place  which  the  immortal 
hope  should  occupy  in  our  regards. 

The  true  and  natural  state  of  mind  is  found,  I  apprehend, 
when  the  futurity  offered  to  our  hopes  is  less  loved  than 
happy  and  virtuous  existence  on  earth,  but  more  loved  than 
life  here  upon  unfaithful  or  forbidden  terms ;  —  when,  leav- 
ing unimpaired  our  content  with  permitted  happiness,  it 
brings  the  needful  solace  to  afliiction.  It  matters  not  that 
the  realities  of  that  higher  world  will  doubtless  transcend 
our  happiest  life,  and  the  successive  stages  of  our. being  be 
ever  progressive  in  excellence.  The  reality  can  affect  us 
only  through  our  ideas  of  it ;  and  these  ideas  present  us 
with  so  faint  an  image  of  the  truth,  that  its  vividness  must 
be  surpassed  by  the  warmer  and  nearer  light  of  our  actual 
and  happy  experience. 


248  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH. 

The  future  cannot  reasonably  be  expected  to  compete 
with  the  present  in  our  desires,  because  our  conceptions  of 
it  are  necessarily  nothing  more  than  a  selection  from  the 
present.  The  scenery  of  our  immortal  hope  is  constructed 
from  the  scattered  elements  of  our  mortal  life.  We  borrow 
from  memory  its  peaceful  retrospect,  from  conscience  its 
emotions  of  satisfied  duty,  from  reason  its  delighted  per- 
ceptions of  truth,  from  affection  and  faith  the  repose  of 
human  sympathy,  and  the  glow  of  diviner  aspiration :  and, 
combining  all  into  one  full  thought  glorified  by  the  element 
of  eternity,  we  see  before  us  the  future  of  our  hopes. 
Whatever  other  resources  the  great  reality  may  contain, 
whatever  impenetrable  mysteries  lie  within  the  ample  folds 
of  its  duration,  must  be  inoperative  on  us,  because  not  pres- 
ent to  our  minds.  We  look  therefore  at  earth  as  com- 
prising all  the  good  which  we  have  ever  experienced  :  we 
look  at  heaven  as  repeating  some.  And  though  in  icords 
we  may  be  assured  of  the  superior  intensity  of  the  latter, 
in  thought  we  can  but  dwell  on  it  as  it  has  been  felt ;  —  he 
who  has  felt  profoundly,  anticipating  vividly ;  —  he  whose 
emotions  are  obtuse,  looking  on  nothing  but  a  blank.  Nor 
does  the  conception  of  immense  duration  practically  impart 
much  brilliancy  to  the  impressions  of  faith;  for  time  is 
nothing  to  us,  except  as  it  is  replete  with  events,  com- 
pounded of  successive  points  of  consciousness ;  and  we  have 
no  adequate  stock  of  conceptions  of  the  future  wherewith 
to  fill  so  mighty  an  expectancy,  and  people  with  various 
interest  the  vacuity  of  infinite  ages.  The  actual  efiect  of 
the  eternal  hope  is  derived  from  the  imagination  of  single 
passages  of  experience,  —  from  the  instantaneous  glance  of 
some  moment  of  blessedness  or  awe, — the  smiting  of  a 
reproachful  thought, — the  solution  of  a  sad  perplexity, — 
the  vision  of  a  recovered  friend.  It  is  not  in  ordinary  hu- 
man nature  to  prefer  the  fragmentary  happiness  of  heaven, 
as  alone  it  can  appear  before  our  thoughts,  to  the  complete 
and  well-known  satisfactions  of  this  life  in  its  peaceful 
attitudes. 


THE   SHADOW   OF   DEATH.  249 

Again,  the  future  is  to  us  an  abstraction,  a  phantom,  a 
floating  vision,  which  cannot  reasonably  be  expected  to  rival 
in  interest  the  positive  recollections  of  the  actual  scene  in 
which  we  are  placed.  Sensible  impressions,  ideas  of  visible 
and  audible  objects,  would  seem  indispensable  to  the  ex- 
istence of  distinct  and  vivid  conception:  and  when  they 
depart,  and  we  are  called  to  think  of  events  without  any 
scenery ;  of  emotions  without  utterance ;  of  love  without 
a  hand  to  grasp  ;  of  knowledge  without  the  converse  with 
men  and  books,  without  the  real  study  of  light  and  air  and 
water,  and  the  solid  rocks,  and  the  living  things  of  the  forest 
and  the  ocean ;  of  moral  growth  without  a  known  theatre 
of  action  ;  —  the  vision  is  apt  to  flit  away  in  impalpable  and" 
spectral  forms.  It  is  not  that  we  derive  our  chief  enjoy- 
ment from  the  senses  :  but  material  impressions  are  needful 
as  the  centres,  the  fixed  points,  round  which  feelings  and 
recollections  and  imaginations  cluster,  and  without  which 
they  are  speedily  dissipated.  We  love  them,  not  on  their 
own  account,  but  as  the  shelter  and  the  shrine  of  sentiments 
ineffably  dear.  The  memories  of  childhood,  —  how  do  they 
rush  upon  the  heart  when  we  revisit  the  very  scenes  in 
which  they  had  their  birth !  One  tone  of  a  bell  whose  sum- 
mons we  were  accustomed  to  obey,  —  the  sight  of  a  field 
where  we  met  the  companions  of  some  favorite  sport,  — 
the  re-entrance  beneath  a  roof  under  which  we  gathered 
with  brothers  and  sisters  around  the  Christmas  fire,  —  how 
do  they  do  blessed  violence  to  time,  and  snatch  us  into  the 
past !  How  do  they  make  the  atmosphere  of  our  thoughts 
ring  with  the  merry  shout  of  playmates,  or 'paint  on  the 
very  space  before  us  the  smile  of  some  dear  absent  face,  or 
whisper  the  meek  counsel  of  some  departed  voice  !  So 
dependent  are  we  on  such  outward  things,  that  even  slight 
changes  in  the  parts  of  such  a  scene  disturb  us ;  and  the 
disappearance  of  a  building  or  a  tree  seems  to  bereave  us 
of  a  thousand  sympathies.  Long  habit  endears  even  the 
most  homely  familiarities  of  our  existence,  and  we  cannot 


250  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH. 

part  with  them  without  a  pang  :  we  hang  our  thoughts  upon 
the  surfaces  of  all  things  round  us,  —  on  the  walls  of  our 
home,  the  hours  of  the  day,  the  faces  of  neighbors,  the  quiet 
of  country,  or  the  stir  of  town.  And  then,  too,  the  do- 
mesticities of  life !  O  God !  they  would  be  too  much  for 
our  religion,  were  they  not  themselves  in  pure  hearts  a  very 
form  of  that  religion.  If  we  could  all  go  together,  there 
would  be  nothing  in  it :  but  that  separate  dropping  off,  — 
that  departing  one  by  one,  —  that  drift  from  our  anchorage 
alone,  —  that  thrust  into  a  widowed  heaven,  —  who  can 
deny  it  to  be  a  lonesome  thing?  It  is  mere  ignorance  of 
the  human  mind  to  expect  the  love  of  God  to  overpower  all 
this.  Why,  the  more  we  have  thought  of  him,  the  more  we 
have  venerated  and  trusted  him,  so  much  the  more  closely 
has  he  too  become  associated  with  the  familiar  scenery  and 
companions  of  our  life ;  they  have  grown  into  his  image 
and  interpreters;  they  have  established  themselves  as  the 
shrine  of  our  piety,  the  sanctuary  of  his  spirit,  the  expres- 
sion of  his  love  :  and  when  we  are  torn  from  them^  we  seem 
to  retire  to  a  distance  from  his  shelter.  If  Christ  felt  the 
cup  to  be  bitter,  and  turned  for  a  moment  from  the  draught ; 
if  he  trembled  that  he  should  see  no  more  the  towers  of 
Jerusalem,  though  to  see  them  had  drawn  forth  prophetic 
tears ;  if  he  sorrowed  in  spirit  to  bid  adieu  to  the  family  of 
Bethany,  though  the  tie  was  that  of  friendship  and  not  of 
home ;  if  he  hid  his  head  at  parting  in  the  bosom  of  the 
beloved  disciple,  though  to  Mary  the  mother  that  disciple 
was  needful  still ;  if  he  had  rather  that  the  immortal  spirits 
of  the  elder  time  should  come  to  commune  with  him  under 
the  familiar  oaks  of  Tabor,  than  himself  be  borne  to  them 
he  knew  not  whither ;  if  the  Mount  of  Olives,  his  favorite 
retreat  of  midnight  prayer,  and  the  shore  of  the  Galilean 
Lake,  witness  to  the  musings  and  enterprises  of  his  opening 
ministry,  and  the  verdant  slopes  of  Nazareth,  sacred  with 
the  memories  of  early  yeais,  seemed  to  gaze  in  upon  his 
melted  soul  with  a  beseeching  look  that  he  would  not  go ; 


THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.  251 

—  may  not  we,  without  the  reproach  of  impiety  or  the  sus- 
picion of  unacknowledged  doubts,  feel  that  to  depart  is  no 
light  struggle,  and  cast  a  lingering  glance  at  the  friendly 
scene  we  quit?  It  is  not  the  animal  conflict  of  death,  the 
corporeal  pain  of  an  organization  ceasing  to  be  :  to  be  much 
concerned  about  that  were  an  unmanly  fear.  It  is  not  any 
torturing  apprehension  about  the  mysterious  future,  any 
dread  of  the  great  secret,  any  questioning  whether  all  will 
be  well  there :  for  a  good  man  to  be  disturbed  with  such 
feelings,  shows  a  morbid  timidity  of  faith,  a  feeble  distrust 
of  the  benignity  of  Providence,  with  which  an  affectionate 
piety  will  have  no  sympathy.  It  is  simply  and  solely  the 
adieu  to  things  loved  and  left,  the  exchange  of  the  familiar 
for  the  new,  from  which  our  hearts  may  be  justified  if  they 
recoil.  Doubtless,  the  time  will  come,  when  successive 
strokes  of  bereavement  have  fallen  upon  our  homes,  for  that 
recoil  to  cease.  When  in  the  sanctuary  of  the  affections 
the  lights  are  almost  extinguished,  and  those  that  remain 
only  enable  us  to  read  the  inscriptions  on  the  multitude  of 
surrounding  tombs ;  when,  in  fact,  the  solitude  would  be, 
not  to  depart,  but  to  remain,  —  we  may  well  and  naturally 
feel  that  it  is  time  to  go,  and  our  prayer  may  be  to  be 
speedily  withdrawn  to  the  place  of  rest.  For  now,  what- 
ever may  be  the  indistinctness  of  the  future,  the  groups  of 
friendship  are  there  ;  they  make  the  best  part  of  its  scenery ; 
and  wherever  they  are  is  a  shelter  and  a  home.  However 
strange  to  us  the  colony  may  be  in  which  they  dwell,  if,  as 
we  cross  the  deeps  of  death,  their  visionary  forms  shall 
crowd  the  shore,  and  people  the  hills  of  that  un visited  abode, 
it  will  be  to  us  "  a  better  country,  even  a  heavenly." 

There  is  then  a  glow  in  this  world  more  genial  and  less 
faint  than  the  orb  of  everlasting  hope  ;  and  yet  a  darkness, 
too,  most  thankful  for  its  mild  and  holy  beams.  Pale  at 
our  mid-day,  it  attains  its  glory  at  our  noon  of  night ;  and 
if  it  does  not  light  us  at  our  work,  lifts  us  when  we  watch 
and  pray.     The   proper   entrance  for  faith  and  hope  lies 


252  THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH. 

between  the  ripeness  of  blessing  and  the  deepening  of  sad- 
ness; between  the  crown  and  the  cross  of  life.  Do  you 
think  that  so  modest  a  place  for  so  great  an  expectation  is 
injurious  to  the  dignity  of  religion?  Perhaps  it  is  in  the 
better  harmony  with  its  humility :  at  least  it  seems  not 
unsuitable  to  a  mind  which  is  so  gi'ateful  for  the  present, 
as  to  shrink  from  pressing  anxious  claims  upon  the  future  : 
which  loves  so  well  the  given  world  of  God,  as  not  often 
to  remind  him  of  the  promised  one.  "Were  this  the  only 
eclipse  which  the  immortal  prospect  is  liable  to  suffer,  there 
would  be  little  need  to  lament  the  languor  of  its  light. 
That  causes  less  excusable  also  intercept  its  influence,  is  not 
indeed  to  be  denied :  but  when  are  we  to  seek  the  remedy  ? 
Shall  we  endeavor  to  loosen  the  affections  from  this  life,' 
and  forbid  all  heart-allegiance  towards  a  scene  to  which  we 
are  tempted  so  strongly  to  cling?  Alas!  we  shall  not  love 
heaven  more  for  loving  earth  less :  this  would  be  a  mere 
destruction  of  one  set  of  sympathies,  in  no  way  tending  to 
the  creation  of  another.  The  love  of  God  may  even  find  its 
root  in  the  love  of  kindred  ;  and  admiration  of  his  works 
and  ways  is  the  germ  of  adoration  of  himself.  If  it  is  from 
the  blessings  of  the  present  that  we  construct  our  conception 
of  the  future ;  to  enfeeble  our  sense  of  these  blessings,  is  to 
take  away  the  very  materials  of  faith.  No ;  the  needful 
thing  is  not  that  we  abate,  but  that  we  consecrate,  the  in- 
terests and  affections  of  our  life ;  entertain  them  with  a 
thoughtful  heart ;  serve  them  with  the  will  of  duty ;  and 
revere  them  as  the  benediction  of  our  God.  The  same  spirit 
which  takes  the  veil  of  Deity  from  the  present  will  drive 
away  the  clouds  that  overhang  the  future :  and  he  that 
makes  his  moments  devout,  shall  not  feel  his  eternity  to 
be  cheerless.  And  as  it  is  the  fascinations  of  affectionate 
memory  that  hold  us  back,  they  may  be  not  a  little  counter- 
acted by  the  creations  of  sacred  hope.  We  shall  be  less 
servilely  detained  among  things  seen,  when  we  are  less 
indolent  in  our   conceptions  of  things   unseen ;   when  we 


THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH.  253 

freely  cast  into  them  every  blessed  remembrance,  every  high 
pursuit,  every  unanswered  aspiration,  every  image  pure  and 
dear ;  and  invest  them  with  the  forms  of  a  divine  and  holy 
beauty.  If  the  particular  good  which  we  imagine  should 
not  arrive,  it  can  only  be  because  God  will  present  us  with 
far  better.  Without  this  free  license  for  the  creations  of 
faith,  I  see  not  how,  while  we  are  mortals  yet,  immortality 
can  exercise  its  due  attraction  upon  our  minds.  To  die^  can 
never,  without  an  enthusiasm  which  does  violence  to  reason 
and  little  credit  to  the  heart,  be  an  act  of  transport :  so  low 
as  an  act  of  submission  it  need  not  sink ;  for  that  would 
imply  a  belief  that  the  change  from  the  present  to  the  future 
is  for  evil.  It  is  most  fitly  met  in  the  spirit  of  trusty  —  an 
unbroken  belief  that  it  is  for  the  better,  but  a  feeling  of 
reluctance,  which  we  distrust  and  check,  as  though  it  were 
for  the  worse ;  a  consciousness  that  if  we  chose  for  ourselves, 
we  should  remain  where  we  are,  yet  not  a  doubt  of  the 
greater  wisdom  and  goodness  of  God's  choice,  that  we 
should  go.  If  this  spirit  of  humble  faith  be  not  high- 
wrought  enough,  may  God  forgive  the  loving  hearts  that 
can  attain  no  better  I 


XXVI. 
GREAT  HOPES   FOR  GREAT  SOULS. 


1  Corinthians  xv.  48. 
as  is  the  heavenly,  such  are  they  also  that  are  heavenly. 

The  contempt  with  which  it  is  the  frequent  practice  of 
divines  to  treat  the  grounds  of  natural  religion,  betrays  an 
ignorance  both  of  the  true  office  of  revelation,  and  of  the 
true  wants  of  the  human  heart.  It  cannot  be  justified, 
except  on  the  supposition  that  there  is  some  contradiction 
between  the  teachings  of  creation  and  those  of  Christ,  with 
some  decided  preponderance  of  proof  in  favor  of  the  latter. 
Even  if  the  gospel  furnished  a  series  of  perfectly  new 
truths,  of  which  nature  had  been  profoundly  silent,  it  would 
be  neither  reasonable  nor  safe  to  fix  exclusive  attention  on 
these  recent  and  historical  acquisitions,  and  prohibit  all  refer- 
ence to  those  elder  oracles  of  God,  by  which  his  Spirit,  en- 
shrined in  the  glories  of  his  universe,  taught  the  fathers  of 
our  race.  And  if  it  be  the  function  of  Christianity,  not  to 
administer  truth  entirely  new,  but  to  corroborate  by  fresh 
evidence,  and  invest  with  new  beauty,  and  publish  to  the 
millions  with  a  voice  of  power,  a  faith  latent  already  in  the 
hearts  of  many,  and  scattered  through  the  speculations  of 
the  wise  and  noble  few,  —  to  erect  into  realities  the  dreams 
which  had  visited  a  half-inspired  philosophy,  interpreting 
the  life  and  lot  of  man  ;  —  then  there  is  a  relation  between 
the  religion  of  nature  and  that  of  Christ,  —  a  relation  of 
original  and  supplement,  —  which  renders  the  one  essential 
to  the  apprehension  of  the  other.     Revelation,  you  say,  has 


GREAT  HOPES   FOR   GREAT   SOULS.  255 

given  us  the  clew  by  which  to  thread  the  labyrinth  of  crea- 
tion, and  extricate  ourselves  from  its  passages  of  mystery 
and  gloom.  Be  it  so ;  still,  there^  in  the  scene  thus  cleared 
of  its  perplexity,  must  our  worship  be  paid,  and  the  mani- 
festation of  Deity  be  sought.  If  the  use  of  revelation  be  to 
explain  the  perplexities  of  providence  and  life,  it  would  be 
a  strange  use  to  make  of  the  explanation,  were  we  to  turn 
away  from  the  thing  explained.  We  hold  the  key  of  heaven 
in  our  hands ;  what  folly  to  be  for  ever  extolling  and  ven- 
erating it,  whilst  we  prohibit  all  approach  to  the  temple, 
whose  gates  it  is  destined  to  unlock ! 

The  great  doctrine  of  human  immortality  has  received 
from  Christianity  its  widest  and  noblest  efficacy ;  has  been 
lifted  for  many  a  generation  from  a  low  point  of  proba- 
bility to  the  confines  of  certainty  ;  and  has  found  in  the 
glorified  "Finisher  of  faith"  an  answer  to  the  difficulties 
which  most  embarrass  the  divine  hope  of  the  human  mind. 
But  the  influence  which  is  most  effectual  in  diffusing  a 
truth  in  the  first  instance,  is  not  always  the  best  for  creating 
the  later  and  calmer  faith  of  the  reflecting  heart :  and  when 
the  historical  illustration  has  parted  with  something  of  its 
power,  it  may  be  useful  to  the  feelings  and  imagination  to 
dwell  on  considerations,  of  feebler  force  perhaps,  but  of 
nearer  and  deeper  interest.  Thus  it  is  with  the  natural 
indications  of  human  immortality.  Nature  and  life,  our 
sins  and  sorrows,  our  virtues  and  our  peace,  have  on  them 
the  traces  of  a  great  futurity ;  and  to  neglect  these  is  to  pay 
a  dubious  and  even  a  fatal  honor  to  revelation.  The  Chris- 
tian history  is  a  matter  long  past ;  the  resurrection  of  our 
great  Prophet  is  viewed  by  us  at  the  remoter  end  of  a  series 
of  centuries  ;  and  the  vibration  with  which  it  should  thrill 
our  affections  is  almost  lost  in  traversing  so  vast  a  gulf. 
But  if  in  the  actual  phenomena  of  human  life  and  its  distrib- 
ution of  good  and  ill, — if  in  the  very  constitution  of  our  own 
minds,  there  are  evidences  of  a  cycle  of  existence  beyond 
the  present,  we  have  here  a  voice,  not  of  history,  but  of 


256  GREAT   HOPES   FOR   GREAT   SOULS. 

experience,  bidding  us  look  up ;  a  warning  from  the  living' 
present,  not  from  the  tomb  of  the  past :  and  though  it  may 
be  less  clear  in  its  announcements,  yet  may  the  gentlest 
whisper  at  our  right  hand  startle  us  more  than  the  loudest 
echo  from  afar.  It  is  a  solemn  thing,  when  we  gaze  in- 
tently at  the  dial  of  our  fate,  and  listen  to  the  beats  that 
number  our  vicissitudes,  to  see  its  index  distinctly  pointing 
to  eternity.  The  exclusive  appeal  to  the  historical  evidence 
of  futurity  is  one  great  cause,  I  believe,  of  the  feeble  effect 
of  this  mighty  expectation.  Till  it  is  felt  that  heaven  is 
needed  to  complete  the  history  of  earth,  till  men  become 
conscious  of  capacities  for  which  their  present  sphere  of 
action  is  too  contracted,  till  the  wants  of  the  intellect  and 
the  affections  cry  aloud  within  them  for  the  boundless  and 
eternal,  the  distant  words  of  Christian  promise  will  die 
away,  ere  they  reach  their  hearts  ;  there  will  be  no  visible 
infinitude  of  hope ;  and  amid  the  incessant  verbal  recogni- 
tion of  the  great  hereafter,  practical  doubts  will  brood  over 
the  feelings,  which  will  blight  all  true  sincerity  of  faith. 
The  character  of  some  of  these  doubts  I  proceed  to  indicate, 
—  doubts,  not  of  direct  speculation,  not  arising  from  any 
perception  of  fallacy  in  the  evidence,  not  therefore  leading 
to  any  denial  of  the  doctrine  of  futurity,  —  but  doubts  that 
lurk  obscurely  in  the  feelings,  cold,  silent,  undefined ;  that 
come  and  go  like  spectres, —  come  when  we  abhor,  and  van- 
ish when  we  seek  them  ;  that  shun  the  steady  gaze  of  the 
intellect,  and  haunt  with  fiend-like  stare  the  uplifted  eye  of 
broken  hope  and  trembling  love.  It  will  appear  that  these 
doubts  are  peculiar  to  our  inferior  states  of  character ;  that 
when  the  higher  parts  of  our  nature  are  developed,  and  the 
adaptation  of  immortality  to  our  true  wants  is  felt,  they 
disappear. 

There  are  doubts  obtruded  on  us  by  our  animal  nature. 
It  is  not  at  all  surprising  that  in  proportion  as  we  attend  to 
the  perishable  part  of  our  nature,  our  nature  should  appear 
perishable ;  and  that  in  proportion  as  we  neglect  the  mind, 


GREAT   HOPES   FOB   GREAT   SOULS.  257 

which  alone  has  any  heritage  in  the  future,  the  future  should 
become  obscure.  True  though  it  is  that  we  are  fearfully  and 
wonderfully  made,  there  is  something  humiliating  in  the 
protracted  and  exclusive  study  of  man's  physical  organiza- 
tion ;  and  whatever  indications  it  affords  of  the  designing 
benevolence  of  God,  it  rather  troubles  than  assists  the  con- 
ception of  the  immortality  of  man :  for  that  benevolence, 
being  equally  manifested  in  the  structures  and  laws  of  the 
brute  creation,  cannot  direct  us  to  the  hopes  of  higher 
natures.  When  the  thoughts  have  been  intently  fixed  on 
the  physiology  of  the  human  body,  when  the  frame  has 
been  analyzed  into  its  several  organs,  and  the  functions  of 
our  corporeal  life  described ;  or  when,  in  studying  the  natu- 
ral history  of  man,  we  are  led  to  compare  him  with  the 
other  tribes  that  people  the  earth,  the  imagination  rises 
from  such  studies  with  secret  uneasiness :  it  has  been,  for 
the  sake  of  knowledge,  to  the  meaner  haunts  of  our  being, 
just  as  the  philanthropist,  for  the  sake  of  benevolence,  fre- 
quents the  dingy  recesses  of  sin  and  misery :  it  finds  itself 
surrounded  with  clinging  impressions  of  materialism,  from 
which  it  must  shake  itself  fr6e,  before  it  can  again  realize 
the  holier  relations  and  loftier  prospects  of  human  exist- 
ence. Nor  is  it  unusual  for  death  to  be  presented  to  us  in 
an  aspect  which  unreasonably,  but  irresistibly,  troubles  the 
heart's  diviner  trust.  Sometimes  indeed  the  last  hour  of  a 
human  life  comes  on  so  gentle  a  wing,  that  it  seems  a  fit 
passage  of  a  soul  to  God :  the  feeble  pulse  which  flutters 
into  death,  the  fading  eye  whose  light  seems  not  to  be 
blotted  out  but  only  to  retire  within,  the  fleeting  breath 
that  seems  to  stop,  that  the  spirit  may  depart  in  reverent 
silence,  —  are  like  the  signs  of  a  contented  exchange  of 
worlds,  of  a  mind  that  has  nothing  for  which  to  struggle, 
because  it  passes  to  the  peace  of  God.  But  when  the  strife 
is  strong,  —  when,  at  the  solemn  point  of  existence  which 
seems  most  to  demand  an  intent  serenity  of  soul,  the  animal 
nature  starts  to  its  supremacy  and  fiercely  claims  the  mas- 

17 


258  GREAT   HOPES   FOR   GREAT   SOULS. 

tery,  and  clings  with  convulsive  grasp  to  the  margin  of  mor- 
tality, our  imaginations  are  visited  with  a  deeper  trouble 
than  would  arise  merely  from  sympathy  with  the  departing 
sufferer.  "  Is  this,"  we  think,  "  the  transition  to  the  skies, 
—  this,  more  like  the  end  of  hope  than  the  beginning  of 
peace,  more  like  a  thrust  into  the  blackest  night,  than  an 
ushering  into  the  beautiful  dawn  of  the  eternal  land?" 
And  why  is  this  ?  It  is  the  tyranny  of  our  animal  sympa- 
thies ;  which  may  well  be  sceptical  of  immortality,  for  it  is 
not  for  them.  The  corporeality  of  our  nature  is  for  the 
time  so  vehemently  forced  upon  the  attention,  that  we  for- 
get what  else  there  is :  the  half  of  the  being  is  taken  to 
represent  the  whole ;  and  that  half  is  really  coming  to  a 
close.  When  we  retire  from  the  dread  impression  of  this 
scene,  and  remember  the  bright  mind  eclipsed  only  during 
the  last  hour;  when  we  recognize  in  its  history  many  a 
noble  toil  for  truth,  many  a  holy  effort  of  duty,  many  an 
exhibition  of  moral  and  mental  capability  too  great  and 
gentle  to  find  their  gratification  here,  we  gradually  return 
from  the  shock  of  nature  to  the  quietude  of  faith.  But  this 
return  depends  on  regarding  the  body  as  the  instrument  of 
the  mind;  and  there  are  people  who  never  do  this,  —  men 
who  take  their  limbs  to  be  their  life,  and  confound  their 
senses  with  their  soul,  —  who  say  wise  things  about  the 
blessings  of  health  and  ease,  and  hear  only  empty  words 
when  there  is  mention  of  a  full  mind,  and  pure  and  resolute 
sentiments  of  conscience,  and  earnest  affections  human  and 
divine.  To  such, — the  sensual,  —  there  is  nothing  else  in 
man  but  body ;  take  that  from  their  conceptions,  and  noth- 
ing remains.  What  then  but  an  absolute  blank  before  their 
mind  can  be  an  existence  in  which  the  material  interests  of 
our  present  being  utterly  vanish,  and  a  spirituality  unknown 
to  them  even  in  idea  assumes  the  place?  To  say  that  they 
must  look  forwards  to  it  with  the  same  kind  of  feeling  as 
the  musician  to  becoming  deaf,  and  the  artist  to  becoming 
blind,  fails  to  convey  an  adequate  idea  of  the  emptiness,  the 


GREAT  HOPES  FOR    GREAT   SOULS.  259 

absolute  nothingness,  of  their  anticipation.  If  we  could 
conceive  a  being  created  with  no  inlet  of  consciousness  but 
the  sense  of  sight,  —  without  thought,  without  emotion^ 
without  other  sensation,  —  a  being  in  fact  all  eye^  we  per- 
ceive that  it  would  be  the  same  thing  to  him,  whether  his 
vision  be  paralyzed,  or  he  himself  be  planted  in  the  midst  of 
deep  and  rayless  night.  To  such  a  one,  both  conditions 
would  be  a  total  annihilation  :  as  life  was  nothing  more  than 
visual  perception,  so  the  privation  of  such  perception  would 
be  death  :  the  preservation  of  the  organ  would  be  attended  by 
no  consciousness  :  in  eternal  darkness,  its  function,  its  pleas- 
ures and  its  pains,  are  for  ever  gone ;  and  had  it  never  been, 
its  non-existence  could  not  be  more  perfect.  Precisely  sim- 
ilar is  the  view  of  futurity,  —  the  futurity  of  the  intellectual 
and  social  and  moral  powers  of  our  nature,  —  to  the  sensual 
in  whom  these  powers  sleep.  All  the  functions  of  existence 
with  which  he  is  familiar  vanish  from  him;  and  as  well 
might  he  himself  be  blotted  out,  as  be  placed  where  all  the 
offices  and  elements  of  his  life  disappear.  He  is  an  eye 
dipped  in  darkness,  —  an  ear  left  alone  in  an  infinitude  of 
silence ;  immortality  is  to  him  but  prolonged  paralysis ;  it 
has  nothing  to  distinguish  it  from  death.  What  wonder 
then  that,  in  proportion  as  we  resemble  such  a  being,  our 
feelings  are  harassed  by  a  thousand  doubts  of  renovated 
life !  The  doubts  are  indeed  perfectly  well  founded :  for 
this  nature  there  is  no  further  life ;  its  mechanism  wears 
out,  and  death  casts  it  aside  for  ever :  and,  till  that  higher 
nature,  of  which  it  is  the  organic  instrument,  is  born  to  full 
life  within  us,  we  have  no  kindred  or  affinity  with  the 
eternal  state.  But  when,  by  nobler  culture,  by  purer  expe- 
rience, by  breathing  the  air  of  a  higher  duty,  vitality  at 
length  creeps  into  the  soul,  the  instincts  of  immortality  will 
wake  within  us.  The  word  of  hope  will  speak  to  us  a  lan- 
guage no  longer  strange.  We  shall  feel  like  the  captive  bird 
carried  accidentally  to  its  own  land,  when,  hearing  for  the 
first  time  the  burst  of  kindred  song  from  its  native  woods, 


260  .  GREAT   HOPES   FOR  GREAT   SOULS. 

it  beats  instinctively  the  bars  of  its  cage  in  yearning  for  the 
free  air  that  is  thrilled  with  so  sweet  a  strain. 

There  are  doubts  forced  on  us  by  our  selfish  nature.  A 
hard  and  self-enclosed  mind  is  destitute  of  the  feelings  that 
look  most  intently  on  the  future,  and  make  it  most  credible, 
because  most  urgently  needed,  by  us.  It  is  rather  our  sym- 
pathetic than  our  personal  happiness  that  is  wounded  by  the 
conditions  of  our  mortal  being.  For  ourselves  alone,  if  we 
love  not  deeply  our  own  kind,  it  is  usually  possible  to  pre- 
serve a  decent  and  sober  life,  a  small  order  of  happiness, 
respectably  ensured  from  ruin,  which  will  never  feel  impelled 
to  look  up  and  cry  aloud  to  God.  It  is  when  we  suffer  our- 
selves to  seek  a  profounder  but  a  frailer  bliss ;  when  the 
heart  possesses  a  terrible  stake  in  existence  ;  when  we  yield 
ourselves  to  the  strongest  love,  and  yet  can  love  nothing 
that  we  may  not  lose ;  that  we  feel  capacities  which  are 
mocked  by  the  brevity  of  life,  and  totally  incapable  of  ex- 
haustion here.  It  is  our  affections  chiefly  that  are  dispro- 
portioned  to  our  condition  :  they  are  an  over-match  for  us 
in  this  world.  God  would  never  launch  so  frail  a  vessel  on 
so  stormy  a  sea,  where  the  roll  of  every  wave  may  wreck 
us,  were  it  not  designed  to  float  at  length  on  serener  waters, 
and  beneath  gentler  skies.  O  God  !  it  is  terrible  to  think 
what  may  be  lost  in  one  human  life  ;  what  hope,  what  joy, 
what  goodness,  may  drop  with  one  creature  into  the  grave ! 
how  all  things,  now  so  full  of  the  energies  of  a  cheerful 
being,  so  copious  in  motive  and  in  peace,  so  kindled  by  the 
smile  of  Providence,  and  ringing  with  the  happy  voices  of 
nature  and  our  kind,  may  droop  and  gloom  before  us  by  one 
little  change  !  It  is  not  from  without,  but  from  within,  — 
from  the  sacred  but  changing  orb  of  our  own  love,  —  that 
the  light  and  colors  come,  in  which  we  see  the  scenery  of 
existence  clad ;  and  if  there  be  an  eclipse  within,  creation 
mourns  beneath  a  film  of  darkness.  It  is,  however,  in  such 
moments  of  sorrow,  and  in  the  perpetual  consciousness  that 
they  may  come,  that  we  find  the  strongest  call  of  thought 


GREAT   HOPES   FOB  GREAT   SOULS.  261 

to  a  more  peaceful  and  stable  being ;  and  that  we  are  urged 
to  fly  to  the  distant  regions  in  which  the  intercepted  light 
still  shines.  But  all  this  the  heart  of  the  selfish  can  never 
know  :  his  sympathies  are  well  proportioned  to  the  dimen- 
sions and  the  securities  of  this  state  :  for  all  that  he  yet 
feels,  an  eternal  life  would  be  an  enormous  over-provision  : 
he  has  no  passionate  tenacity  of  love  that  clings  imploringly 
to  any  blessing ;  but  is  able  to  shrink  into  his  shell  of  per- 
sonal ease,  and  sleep.  ISTor  does  the  wider  benevolence,  the 
spirit  of  Christian  philanthropy  to  which  the  selfish  man  is 
equally  insensible,  stimulate  less  urgently  the  demand  for 
immortality.  How  is  it  possible  to  study  deeply  the  lot 
of  the  great  majority  of  men;  —  to  see  them  ground  down 
by  toil ;  spending  their  years  in  bare  self-continuation, 
and  ending  life  without  tasting  of  its  fruits  ;  filled  to  satiety 
with  labor  and  starved  to  death  within  the  mind ;  —  how 
is  it  possible  to  see  so  much  noble  capability  wasted,  so 
much  true  blessedness  lost,  so  many,  first  created  a  little 
lower  than  the  angels,  and  then  forced  nearly  to  a  level 
with  the  brutes,  —  without  providing  in  our  thoughts  a 
future  vindication  of  the  Creator,  —  a  life  in  which  the 
fearful  inequality  will  be  compensated,  and  the  suspended 
good  at  length  born?  But  the  cold  and  self- regarding 
mind  cannot  understand  a  sentiment  like  this.  It  has  no 
such  sympathy  with  the  well-being  of  others  as  to  feel  that 
their  habitual  privations  constitute  a  moral  claim  upon  the 
benevolence  of  God.  It  has  no  generous  faith  in  the  pos- 
sibilities of  human  improvement;  but,  thinking  meanly  of 
its  kind,  is  not  disconcerted  by  the  meanness  of  its  destiny. 
Ignorant  of  the  immeasurable  contents  of  our  nature,  of 
the  resources  of  our  human  affections,  of  the  heroic  ener- 
gies of  duty,  and  the  sublime  peace  of  God,  he  sees  noth- 
ing worth  immortalizing ;  and  because  he  himself  would 
be  an  anomaly  in  heaven,  he  fancies  heaven  too  good  for 
man.  Thus  selfishness,  like  sensuality,  secretly  conscious  of 
its  ignobility,  and  interpreting  by  its  own  experience  the 


262  GREAT   HOPES  FOR  GREAT  SOULS. 

whole  race  of  human  kind,  stifles  within  us  the  eternal 
hope. 

Causes,  not  moral,  like  the  foregoing,  but  merely  intel- 
lectual, tend  also  to  disturb  the  feelings  with  doubts  on  this 
subject.  Very  contracted  knowledge  and  feeble  imagina- 
tion will  usually  possess  but  a  fluctuating  faith  in  all  truths 
remote  from  experience.  Though  our  faith  may  ^o  far 
beyond  our  experience,  it  must  always  be  chained  down  by 
it  at  a  distance  :  our  conceptions  of  probability  are  limited 
by  the  analogies  within  our  reach  :  the  magnitude  of  each 
one's  possible  must  bear  some  proportion  to  his  actual :  the 
invisible  scenes  which  he  imagines  will  be  graduated  by  the 
visible  which  he  beholds.  In  proportion,  therefore,  as  our 
ideas  are  few,  and  the  circle  of  our  intellectual  perceptions 
more  narrowly  bounded,  will  it  be  difficult  for  us  to  feel  the 
possibility  of  a  state  so  totally  new,  so  little  familiarized  to 
us  by  any  known  resemblances  to  our  present  condition,  as 
the  futurity  to  which  we  tend.  This  incompetency  of  relig- 
ious imagination  is  far  from  being  exclusively  attendant  on 
what  the  world  calls  ignorance.  It  may  be  found  often 
beneath  the  polished  speech,  the  practised  address,  the  agile 
faculties  of  men  conspicuous  in  affairs ;  being  as  much  the 
creation  of  voluntary  habit,  as  the  consequence  of  helpless 
incapacity.  Aptitude  for  business  is  not  power  of  reason  ; 
and  a  grandee  on  the  exchange  may  be  a  pauper  in  God's 
universe.  To  calculate  shrewdly  is  different  from  meditating 
wisely ;  and,  where  turned  into  an  exclusive  engagement, 
is  even  more  hostile  to  it  than  the  torpor  of  the  entire  mind. 
The  pointed,  distinct,  and  microscopic  attention  which  we 
direct  upon  the  details  of  human  existence  here,  is  unfavor- 
able to  the  comprehensive  vision  of  a  boundless  sphere :  the 
glass  through  which  we  best  look  at  the  minutiae  near  us, 
serves  but  to  confuse  our  gaze  upon  the  stars.  Growing 
knowledge,  enlarging  thought,  the  reverent  estimate  of  truth 
and  beauty,  furnish  us  with  a  thousand  facilities  for  illus- 
trating and  realizing  the  unseen,  and  replenishing  its  blank 


GREAT  HOPES   FOB   GREAT   SOULS.  263 

abyss  with  bright  creations.  Nay,  the  mental  horizon  spreads 
by  mere  extension  of  the  physical ;  and  as  our  station  rises 
above  the  world,  our  range  of  possibilities  and  our  willing- 
ness of  faith  appear  to  grow.  For  who  can  deny  the  effect 
of  wide  space  alone  in  aiding  the  conception  of  vast  time? 
The  spectator  who  in  the  dingy  cellar  of  the  city,  under  the 
oppression  of  a' narrow  dwelling,  watching  the  last  moments 
of  some  poor  mendicant,  finds  incongruity  and  perplexity  in 
the  thought  of  the  eternal  state,  would  feel  the  difficulty 
vanish  in  an  instant,  were  he  transplanted  to  the  mountain- 
top,  where  the  plains  and  streams  are  beneath  him,  and  the 
clouds  are  near  him,  and  the  untainted  breeze  of  heaven 
sweeps  by,  and  he  stands  alone  with  nature  and  with  God. 
And  when,  in  addition  to  the  mere  spectacle  and  love  of 
nature,  there  is  a  knowledge  of  it  too ;  when  the  laws  and 
processes  are  understood  which  surround  us  with  wonder 
and  beauty  every  day;  when  the  great  cycles  are  known 
through  which  the  material  creation  passes  without  decay ; 
then,  in  the  immensity  of  human  hopes,  there  appears  noth- 
ing which  need  stagger  faith  :  it  seems  'no  longer  strange, 
that  the  mind  which  interprets  the  material  creation  should 
survive  its  longest  period,  and  be  admitted  to  its  remoter 
realms. 

Thus,  in  proportion  as  our  nature  rises  in  its  nobleness, 
does  it  realize  its  immortality.  As  it  retires  from  animal 
grossness,  from  selfish  meanness,  from  pitiable  ignorance  or 
sordid  neglect,  —  as  it  opens  forth  into  its  true  intellectual 
and  moral  glory,  —  do  its  doubts  disperse,  its  affections 
aspire :  the  veil  is  uplifted  from  the  future,  the  darkness 
breaks  away,  and  the  spirit  walks  in  dignity  within  the 
paradise  of  God's  eternity.  What  a  testimony  this  to  the 
great  truth  from  which  our  hope  and  consolations  flow ! 
What  an  incitement  to  seek  its  bright  and  steady  light  by 
the  culture  of  every  holy  faculty  within  us  !  The  more  we 
do  the  will  of  our  Father,  the  more  do  we  feel  that  this 
doctrine  is  indeed  of  him.     Its  affinities  are  with  the  loftiest 


264  GREAT   HOPES   FOR  GREAT   SOULS. 

parts  of  our  nature ;  and  in  our  trust  in  it,  we  ally  ourselves 
with  the  choicest  spirits  of  our  race.  And  while  we  sym- 
pathize with  them  in  their  past  faith,  we  prepare  to  meet 
them  where  we  may  assume  their  nearer  likeness.  Ever 
seek  we  therefore  the  things  which  are  above. 


XXVII. 
LOl    GOD    IS    HERE! 

Acts  xvii.  30. 

and   the  times   of  this   ignorance   god  winked   at;    but   now 
commandeth  all  men  everywhere  to  repent. 

Paul,  it  would  appear,  looked  with  a  very  different  feeling 
on  times  past,  and  times  present.  Behind  him,  he  saw  the 
age  of  ignorance  and  irreligion,  so  dark  and  wild,  that  life 
appeared  to  lie  quite  outside  the  realm  of  Providence,  and 
earth  to  be  covered  by  no  heaven.  Around  him,  he  beheld 
the  very  era  of  God,  in  which  the  third  heaven  seemed 
almost  within  reach,  and  life  was  so  filled  with  voices  of 
duty  and  hope,  that  it  appeared  like  some  vast  whispering 
gallery,  to  render  what  else  had  been  a  divine  silence  and 
mystery,  audible  and  articulate.  Behind,  he  saw  a  world 
abandoned  ;  from  which  the  great  Ruler  seemed  to  have 
retired,  or  at  least  averted  the  light  of  his  countenance  ;  to 
which  he  spake  no  word,  and  gave  no  intelligible  sign ; 
about  whose  doings  it  were  painful  to  say  much ;  for  so  little 
were  they  in  the  likeness  of  his  government,  so  abhorrent 
from  the  spirit  of  his  sway,  that  they  must  have  been  en- 
acted during  the  slumber  of  his  power.  But  now^  the  hour 
of  awakening  had  arrived :  the  foul  dream  of  the  world's 
profaneness  must  be  broken ;  and  Heaven  would  forbear  no 
more.  The  divine  light  was  abroad  again :  divine  tones 
were  floating  through  this  lower  atmosphere,  and  came,  like 
a  solemn  music,  across  the  carnival  shouts  of  sensualism  and 
sin.     Out  of  hearing  of  these  tones  the  far-travelled  Apostle 


266  LO  I    GOD   IS   HERE  ! 

never  passed  :  they  reached  him  through  the  rush  of  waters, 
as  he  sailed  by  night  over  the  iEgean :  the  vohible  voices 
of  Athens  could  not  drown  them :  they  vibrated  through 
the  traffic  and  the  cries  of  Roman  streets,  and  even  pierced 
the  brutal  acclamations  of  the  amphitheatre  ;  they  were 
ubiquitous  as  God,  who  was  everywhere  commanding  all 
men  to  repent.  Whether  in  his  own  life,  or  in  the  world, 
Paul  found  the  past  to  he  profane^  the  present^  divine. 

With  us  this  order  is  reversed.  Our  faith  delights  to 
expound,  not  what  God  is  doing  now^  but  what  he  did  once; 
to  prove  that  formerly  he  was  much  concerned  with  the 
affairs^  of  this  earth  and  the  spirits  of  men,  though  he  has 
abstained  from  personal  intervention  for  many  ages,  and 
become  a  spectator  of  the  scene.  The  point  of  time  at  which 
our  thoughts  search  for  his  agency,  and  feel  after  him  to 
find  him,  lies  not  at  hand,  but  far ;  belongs  not  to  to-day,  but 
to  distant  centuries ;  and  must  be  reached  by  an  historical 
memory,  not  by  individual  consciousness.  To  our  feelings, 
the  period  of  Divine  absenteeism  is  the  present;  wherein 
we  live  on  the  impression,  half  worn  out,  of  his  ancient 
visitations ;  obey  as  we  can  the  precepts  he  is  understood 
to  have  given  of  old ;  and,  like  children  opening  again  and 
again  the  last  tattered  letter  from  a  parent  mysteriously 
silent  in  a  foreign  land,  cheer  ourselves  with  such  assurance 
of  his  love  as  he  may  have  put  on  record  in  languages  an- 
terior to  our  own.  "O  happy  age,"  —  we  think,  —  "that 
really  heard  his  voice  !  O  glorious  souls,  that  felt  his  living 
inspiration  !  O  blessed  lot,  though  it  passed  through  the 
desert  and  the  fire,  that  lay  beneath  the  shelter  of  his  peace  !  '* 
In  short,  our  experience  is  the  opposite  of  Paul's.  That 
voice  which  commanded  all  men  to  repent,  resounds  no 
more ;  its  date  has  gone  clear  away  into  antiquity ;  and  it 
can  faintly  reach  us  only  through  the  dead  report  of  a  hun- 
dred witnesses.  Once  it  was  the  very  spirit  of  God  quiver- 
ing over  the  soul  of  man,  —  a  mountain-air  stirring  on  the 
face  of  the  waters.     The  frosts  of  time  may  have  fixed  the 


LO  !    GOD   IS    HERE  !  267 

Burface,  and  caught  the  form  ;  but  how  different  this  from 
the  trembling  movement  of  our  humanity  beneath  the  sweep 
of  that  living  breath !  No  such  holy  murmur  reaches  us,  to 
whom  theprese7it  is  earthly^  and  the  past^  divine. 

Perhaps  some  one  may  deny  that  there  is  any  real  vari- 
ance between  Paul's  estimate  and  ours ;  on  the  ground  that, 
in  his  view,  the  time  sacred  above  all  others  was  his  own  ^ 
and  in  our  retrospect  that  time  remains  so  still.  Yet  it  may 
be  conjectured,  that  if  we  could  be  put  back  into  his  age, 
we  should  hardly  see  it  with  his  eyes.  Possibly  enough, 
we  might  iook  about  to  no  purpose  for  that  presence  of  the 
Holiest  which  followed  him  through  life  ;  and  listen  with 
disappointed  ear  for  that  whisper  that  "  everywhere  "  came 
to  him  from  the  Infinite  ;  and  though  at  his  side  when  he 
was  in  the  third  heaven,  might  see  nothing  but  the  walls  of 
his  apartment,  in  coldest  exile  from  the  transports  of  the 
skies.  If  you  go  into  the  tent-maker's  warehouse,  where  he 
worked  at  Corinth,  you  find  the  canvas  and  the  tools,  and 
even  the  men  that  ply  them,  such  as  you  may  pass  without 
notice  every  day.  The  lane  in  which  he  lived  in  Rome 
seems  too  dingy  for  any  thing  divine,  and  the  noisy  neigh- 
bors too  ordinary  to  kindle  any  elevated  zeal.  The  city's 
heat  and  din,  the  common  crush  of  life,  the  hurry  from  task 
to  task,  seem  far  enough  from  the  cool  atmosphere  of  prayer, 
and  the  glad  silence  of  immortal  hopes.  And  if  you  con- 
verse with  the  men  and  women  for  whom  the  Apostle  gave 
his  toils  and  tears,  who  received  the  whole  afiiuence  of  his 
sympathies,  you  may  be  amazed,  perchance,  that  he  could 
find  them  so  interesting ;  and  lament  to  discover,  in  such 
an  age  of  golden  days,  the  vulgar  speech,  the  narrow  mind, 
the  selfish  will,  the  envious  passions,  of  these  later  times. 
And,  taking  the  converse  supposition,  —  think  you,  if  he 
had  been  transplanted  from  Mai-s  Hill  to  Westminster,  he 
would  have  been  beyond  the  hearing  of  that  voice  of  God 
which  he  proclaimed  and  obeyed?  —  that  the  celestial  light 
which  rested  upon  life  would  have  passed  away  ?  —  that  his 


268  LO  !    GOD  IS   HERE  ! 

hope  would  have  been  as  faint,  his  worship  as  unreal,  his 
whole  being  as  mechanical,  as  ours  ?  Ah,  no !  let  there  be 
a  soul  of  power  like  his  within ;  and  it  matters  not  what 
weight  of  world  may  be  cast  on  it  from  without.-  Be  we  in 
this  century  or  that,  —  nay,  in  heaven  or  on  earth,  —  it  is 
not  that  we  find,  but  that  we  must  make,  the  present  holy 
and  divine. 

In  vain  then  do  we  plead,  that  our  view  of  time  coincides 
with  that  of  Paul.  With  such  temper  as  we  have,  we 
should  have  listened  to  him  on  Areopagus  in  the  spirit  of 
the  Epicureans  that  heard  him  ;  not  refusing  perhaps  to 
join  the  light  laugh  at  his  enthusiasm ;  and  wondering  how 
a  man,  with  his  foot  on  the  solid  ground  of  life  and  nature, 
can  cast  himself  madly  into  the  abyss  of  a  fancied  futurity, 
and  an  absent  God.  And  as,  in  yielding  to  the  suggestions 
of  such  temper,  we  should  have  felt  falsely,  and  have  looked 
on  Paul's  age  with  a  deluded  eye,  so  would  his  be  the  true 
vision  of  our  times ;  and  his  earnest  proclamation  of  the 
continued  sanctity  of  existence  would  show  his  discerning 
intuition  of  realities  concealed  from  us.  For  God  has  not 
faded  into  a  remembrance  :  he  has  not  retired  from  this 
scene  with  the  generations  known  only  to  tradition.  His 
energies  have  no  era ;  his  sentiments  cannot  be  obsolete ; 
"  his  compassions  fail  not."  Why,  even  sense  and  material 
nature,  his  poorest  and  faintest  interpreters,  rebuke  this 
foolish  dream,  —  that  he  was^  rather  than  is.  They  forbid 
us  to  think  of  him  thus,  were  it  only  in  the  mere  character 
of  Creator.  They  show  us,  in  the  very  structure  of  our 
globe,  —  in  the  rocks  beneath  our  feet,  —  in  the  vast  cem- 
eteries and  monuments  they  disclose  of  departed  races 
of  creatures,  —  that  creation  is  not  single,  but  successive ; 
not  an  act,  but  a  process  ;  not  the  work  of  a  week  or  of  a 
century,  but  of  immeasurable  ages ;  not  moreover  past,  but 
continuous  and  everlasting ;  as  busy,  as  mysterious,  as  vast, 
now,  as  in  the  darkest  antiquity  :  so  that  Genesis  tells  the 
story  of  last  week,  as  truly  as  of  the  six  days  that  ushered 


LO  !    GOD    IS    HERE  !  269 

in  the  world's  first  Sabbath.  The  universe  indeed  is  not  so 
much  a  definite  machine  which  once  he  made,  and  beyond 
which  he  dwells  to  see  it  move,  as  his  own  infinite  abode 
and  ever-changing  manifestation  ;  —  living,  because  the 
dwelling  of  his  power ;  boundless,  because  the  chamber  of 
his  presence  ;  ever  fresh,  because  the  receptacle  of  his  de- 
signs ;  fair,  because  the  expression  of  his  love.  Now,  as  of 
old,  he  that  will  listen  with  the  open  ear  of  meditation,  may 
surely  hear  the  Lord  God  walking  in  his  garden  of  creation 
in  the  cool  of  every  day. 

The  same  temper  which  leads  us  to  search  for  Deity  only 
in  distant  times,  causes  us  to  banish  him  also  into  distant 
space ;  and  persuades  us  that  he  is  not  Aere,  but  there.  He 
is  thought  to  dwell  above,  beneath,  around  the  earth ;  but 
who  ever  thinks  of  meeting  him  on  its  very  dust  ?  Awfully 
he  shrouds  the  abyss ;  and  benignly  he  gazes  on  us  from  the 
stars  :  but,  in  the  field  and  the  street,  no  trace  of  him  is  felt 
to  be.  Under  the  ocean,  and  in  the  desert,  and  on  the 
mountain-top,  he  is  believed  to  rest ;  but,  into  the  nearer 
haunts  of  town  and  village,  we  rarely  conceive  him  to  pene- 
trate. Yet  where  better  could  wisdom  desire  his  presence, 
than  in  the  common  homes  of  men,  —  in  the  thick  cares, 
and  heavy  toils,  and  grievous  sorrows,  of  humanity?  For, 
surely,  if  nature  needs  him  much  in  her  solitudes,  life  re- 
quires him  more  in  the  places  of  passion  and  of  sin.  And 
in  truth,  if  we  cannot  feel  him  near  us  in  this  world,  we 
could  a23proach  him,  it  is  greatly  to  be  feared,  in  no  other. 
Could  a  wish  remove  us  bodily  to  any  distant  sphere  sup- 
posed to  be  divine,  the  heavenly  presence  would  flit  away 
as  we  arrived  ;  would  occupy  rather  the  very  earth  we  had 
been  eager  to  quit ;  and  would  leave  us  still  amid  the  same 
material  elements,  that  seem  to  hide  the  infinite  vision  from 
our  eyes.  Go  where  we  may,  we  seem  mysteriously  to 
carry  our  own  circumference  of  darkness  with  us  :  for  who 
can  quit  his  own  centre,  or  escape  the  point  of  view, —  or 
of  blindness,  —  which  belongs   to  his  own  identity?      He 


270  LO  !    GOD   IS   HERE  ! 

who  is  not  with  God  already,  can  by  no  path  of  space 
find  the  least  approach  :  in  vain  would  you  lend  him  the 
wing  of  angel,  or  the  speed  of  light ;  in  vain  plant  him 
here  or  there,  —  on  this  side  of  death  or  that :  he  is  in  the 
outer  darkness  still ;  having  that  inner  blindness  which 
would  leave  him  in  pitchy  night,  though,  like  the  angel  of 
the  Apocalypse,  he  were  sfanding  in  the  sun.  But  ceasing 
all  vain  travels,  and  remaining  with  his  foot  upon  this 
weary  earth,  let  him  subside  into  the  depths  of  ^jis  own 
wonder  and  love ;  let  the  touch  of  sorrow,  or  the  tears  of 
conscience,  or  the  toils  of  duty,  open  the  hidden  places  of 
his  affections ;  —  and  the  distance,  infinite  before,  wholly 
disappears :  and  he  finds,  like  the  Patriarch,  that  though 
the  stone  is  his  pillow,  and  the  earth  his  bed,  he  is  yet  in 
the  very  house  of  God,  and  at  the  gate  of  heaven.  O  my 
friends,  if  there  be  nothing  celestial  without  us,  it  is  only 
because  all  is  earthly  within  ;  if  no  divine  colors  upon  our 
lot,  it  is  because  the  holy  light  is  faded  on  the  soul :  if  our 
Father  seems  distant,  it  is  because  we  have  taken  our  por- 
tion of  goods  and  travelled  into  a  far  country,  to  set  up  for 
ourselves^  that  we  may  foolishly  enjoy^  rather  than  rever- 
ently serve.  Whenever  he  is  imagined  to  be  remote  and 
almost  slumbering,  be  assured  it  is  human  faith  that  is  really 
heavy  and  on  the  verge  of  sleep ;  drowsy  with  too  much 
ease,  or  tired  with  too  much  sense :  that  it  has  lapsed  from 
the  severe  and  manly  strivings  of  duty  and  affection,  and 
given  itself  over  to  indulgence,  and  become  the  lazy  hire- 
ling of  prudence.  An  Epicurean  world  inevitably  makes 
an  Epicurean  God :  and  when  we  cease  to  do  any  thing 
from  spontaneous  loyalty  to  the  great  Ruler,  we  necessarily 
doubt  whether  he  can  have  occasion  to  do  any  thing  for 
us.  Such  doubts  are  vainly  attacked  by  speculative  proof, 
and  evidence  skilfully  arranged  :  the  clearest  and  the  cloud- 
iest intellect  are  liable  to  them  alike :  for  they  arise  from 
the  practical  feebleness  of  the  inner  man ;  from  a  dwindled 
force  in   the  earnest,  self-forgetful  affections ;  and  can  be 


LO  !    GOD   IS   HERE  !  271 

dissipated  only  by  trustful  abandonment  once  more  to  some 
object  of  duty  and  devotion.  The  times  and  people  that 
have  vividly  felt  the  proximity  of  God  have  always  been 
characterized  by  hearty  and  productive  affections ;  by  vast 
enterprises  and  great  sacrifices ;  by  the  seeds  'of  mighty 
thought  dropped  upon  the  world,  and  the  fruits  of  great 
achievements  contributed  to  human  history.  In  contact 
with  every  grand  era  in  the  experience  of  mankind  will 
be  found  the  birth  of  a  religion  ;  —  a  fresh  discovery  of  the 
preternatural  and  mysterious ;  a  plenary  sense  of  God  ;  the 
descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  waiting  hearts ;  a  day  of  Pen- 
tecost to  strong  and  faithful  souls,  giving  them  the  utter- 
ance of  a  divine  persuasion,  and  dispersing  a  new  gospel 
over  the  world.  We,  alas  !  are  far  enough,  —  far  at  least  as 
the  days  of  Wesley,  —  from  any  such  period  of  inspiration  in 
the  past;  —  perhaps,  however,  the  nearer  to  it  in  the  future, 
as  there  is  no  night  unf  olio  wed  by  the  dawn.  It  is  not  per- 
mitted us  too  curiously  to  search  the  hidden  providences 
of  our  humanity  ;  but  one  thing  we  cannot  fail  to  notice : 
that  a  return  to  simple,  undisguised  affections,  — to  natural- 
and  veracious  speech,  —  to  earnest  and  inartificial  life, — 
has  characterized  every  great  and  noble  period,  and  all  mor- 
ally powerful  and  venerable  men.  To  such  taste  and  affec- 
tions, and  to  the  secret  rule  of  conscience  which  presides 
among  them,  we  must  learn  to  trust,  whatever  be  the  seduc- 
tions of  opinion,  and  the  sophistries  of  expediency,  and  even 
the  pleadings  of  the  speculative  intellect.  When  thus  we  fear 
to  quench  his  spirit,  God  will  not  suffer  our  time  to  be  a 
dreary  and  unconsecrated  thing.  Swept  by  the  very  bor- 
ders of  his  garment,  we  shall  not  look  far  for  his  glorify- 
ing presence.  The  poorest  outward  condition  will  have 
no  power  to  obliterate  the  solemnity  from  life.  Nay,  of 
nothing  may  we  be  more  sure  than  this ;  that,  if  we  cannot 
sanctify  our  present  lot,  we  could  sanctify  no  other.  Our 
heaven  and  our  Almighty  Father  are  there  or  nowhere. 
The  obstructions  of  that  lot  are  given  for  us  to  heave  away 


272  Lo!  GOD  IS  here! 

by  the  concurrent  touch  of  a  holy  spirit,  and  labor  of  a 
strenuous  will ;  its  gloom,  for  us  to  tint  with  some  celestial 
light :  its  mysteries  are  for  our  worship ;  its  sorrows  for 
our  trust ;  its  perils  for  our  courage  ;  its  temptations  for  our 
faith.  Soldiers  of  the  cross,  it  is  not  for  us,  but  for  our 
Leader  and  our  Lord,  to  choose  the  field :  it  is  ours,  taking 
the  station  which  he  assigns,  to  make  it  the  field  of  truth 
and  honor,  though  it  be  the  field  of  death. 

It  is  part  of  the  illusion  which  contrasts  us  with  Paul, 
that  we  esteem  God  to  be  without  us,  rather  than  within  us ; 
a  mode  of  conception  which  I  believe  to  be  ultimately  fatal 
to  that  religious  life,  from  the  incipient  feebleness  of  which 
it  originally  springs.  What  has  been  really  meant  by  those 
devout  men  who  have  freely  spoken  of  God's  communion 
with  them,  and  of  the  thoughts  which  he  has  put  into  the 
heart  ?  That  these  thoughts  did  actually  arise  and  must  be 
accepted  as  facts,  will  hardly  be  denied.  Nor  will  it  be 
doubted  that,  in  the  thinker's  view,  they  appeared  most  high 
and  solemn ;  and  that  in  no  other  way  could  their  beauty 
and  authority  be  expressed,  than  by  calling  them  emanations 
from  the  supreme  Source  of  the  binding  and  the  beautiful. 
To  affirm  the  purest  and  deepest  movements  of  our  nature 
to  be  from  God,  is  the  natural  utterance  of  full  reverence  for 
them ;  to  deny  their  origin  from  him,  is  a  distinct  profession 
that  that  reverence  has  declined :  they  are  sought  for  at  a 
lower  source,  because  they  have  descended  to  a  meaner  place. 
And  while  this  denial  indicates  a  fainter  piety,  it  is  no  sign 
of  stronger  reason.  What  emboldens  you  to  contradict  the 
universal  testimony  of  souls  aloft  in  worship,  —  the  natural 
language  of  poet,  saint  and  prophet?  How  do  you  know 
that  in  the  affections  that  most  glorify  their  hearts,  there  is 
no  immediate  light  of  Heaven  ?  You  say,  perhaps,  they  are 
experienced  by  the  worshij^per's  own  mind,  and  must  be 
parts  of  the  nature  that  feels  them.  But  it  does  not  follow 
that,  because  they  are  included  in  the  consciousness  of  men, 
they  indicate  no  presence  and  living  touch  of  God.     Or  you 


LO  !    GOD   IS   HEEE  !  273 

say,  there  is  no  miracle  in  them,  and  they  come  and  go  by 
laws  not  quite  untraceable.  But  this  only  shows  that  the 
divine  agency,  if  there,  is  free  from  disorder  and  caprice, 
and  loves  to  be  constant  in  behalf  of  those  who  are  faithful 
to  its  conditions.  Or  do  you  complain  of  the  idle  fanati- 
cisms, which  often  have  preferred  this  tempting  claim? 
Idle  they  may  be  to  you,  to  whose  mind  they  stand  in  quite 
different  relation  ;  but  not  perhaps  to  those  whom  assuredly 
they  raised  to  higher  life.  We  are  not  all  alike ;  and  God 
does  not  exist  for  any  miserable  egotist  alone.  We  are  all 
indeed  set  in  one  infinite  sphere  of  universal  reason  and 
conscience  ;  but  scattered  over  it  to  follow  separate  circles, 
and  attain  every  variety  of  altitude  in  faith.  Like  stars 
upon  the  same  meridian,  whose  culminating  points  cannot 
be  alike,  we  touch  our  supreme  heights  at  different  eleva- 
tions ;  and  the  measure  which  is  far  down  on  the  course  of 
one  mind,  may  be  the  acme  of  religion  in  another.  And  it 
is  as  worthy  of  God  to  lift  every  soul  to  the  ethereal  summit 
proper  to  it,  as  to  roll  the  heavens,  and  call  forth  their  lights 
by  interval  and  number,  and  see  that  "  not  one  faileth." 
And  as  there  is  no  ground  in  experience  for  rejecting  the 
old  language  of  devotion,  neither  is  there  any  in  the  claim 
of  consistent  philosophy.  We  find  men  ready  enough  to 
allow  that  there  is  no  place  where  God  is  not,  perhaps  no 
time  when  his  external  power  is  not  active  in  some  realm 
or  other.  And  why  then  withhold  from  him  that  internal 
and  spiritual  sphere  of  which  all  else  is  but  the  theatre  and 
the  temple  ?  What  can  dead  space  want  with  the  divine 
presence,  compared  with  the  ever-perilled  soul  of  man,  per- 
petually trembling  on  the  verge  of  grief  or  sin  ?  Shall  we 
coldly  speculate  on  the  physical  omnipresence  of  the  Infinite, 
and  question  the  ubiquity  of  his  moral  power?  —  diffuse 
him  as  an  atmosphere,  and  forget  that  he  is  a  Mind  ?  —  plead 
for  his  mechanical  action  on  matter,  and  doubt  the  contact 
of  spirit  with  spirit?  —  admit  the  agency  of  the  artist  on 
his  work,  and  deny  the  embrace  of  the  Father  and  the  child  ? 

18 


274  LO  !    GOD   IS   HERE  ! 

It  were  indeed  strange  if  this  anomaly  were  true.  Where 
is  this  blessed  object  of  our  worshii^,  if  not  within  our  souls? 
What  possible  ground  is  there  for  affirming  him  to  be  else- 
where and  not  here  ?  Far  more  plausible  would  the  limita- 
tion be,  if  we  were  to  declare  him  manifestly  existent  here 
alone.  All  external  things  are  apprehensible  by  sense,  and 
it  is  to  discover  the  outward  creation  that  the  senses  are 
given.  All  internal  things  are  apprehended  by  thought, 
and  it  is  to  seize  this  far  higher  order  of  realities,  that 
thought  is  given.  Never  was  eye  or  ear  made  perceptive 
of  Deity:  "no  man  hath  heard  his  voice  at  any  time  or 
seen  his  form : "  he  is  the  object  of  simply  spiritual  discern- 
ment, the  holy  image,  mysteriously  shaped  forth  from  the 
quarries  of  our  purest  thought,  and  glowing  with  life,  beauty 
and  power,  in  the  inmost  sanctuary  of  the  mind.  And  his 
reality  there  is  a  certainty  of  the  same  rank  as  the  existence 
of  the  universe  without.  There  is  truth  then,  and  only  a 
wise  enthusiasm,  in  the  established  strains  of  Christian  piety  ; 
invoking  the  presence  of  the  Holiest  to  the  soul  as  his  loved 
retreat,  and  humbly  referring  to  him  the  purest  thoughts 
and  best  desires.  I  pretend  not  to  draw  the  untraceable 
line  that  separates  his  being  from  ours.  The  decisions  of 
the  will,  doubtless,  are  our  own,  and  constitute  the  proper 
sphere  of  our  personal  agency.  But  in  a  region  higher  than 
the  will,  —  the  realm  of  spontaneous  thought  and  emotion, 
—  there  is  scope  enough  for  his  "  abode  with  us."  What- 
ever is  most  deep  within  us  is  the  reflection  of  himself.  All 
our  better  love,  and  higher  aspirations,  are  the  answering 
movements  of  our  nature  in  harmonious  obedience  to  his 
spirit.  Whatever  dawn  of  blessed  sanctity,  and  wakening 
of  purer  perceptions,  opens  on  our  consciousness,  are  the 
sweet  touch  of  his  morning  light  within  us.  His  inspiration 
is  perennial ;  and  he  never  ceases  to  work  within  us,  if  we 
consent  to  will  and  to  do  his  good  pleasure.  He  befriends 
our  moral  efforts;  encourages  us  to  maintain  our  resolute 
fidelity  and  truth ;  accepts  our  co-operation  with  his  designs 


Lo!   GOD  IS  here!  275 

against  all  evil ;  and  reveals  to  us  many  things  far  too  fair 
and  deep  for  language  to  express.  But,  while  he  is  thus 
prompt  to  come  with  his  Spirit  to  the  help  of  seeking  hearts, 
he  is  expelled  by  the  least  unfaithfulness;  and  when  the 
"  spirit  of  truth  "  is  driven  away,  this  holy  "  Comforter  "  no 
more  remains.  To  receive  the  promise,  we  must  deserve 
the  prayer,  of  Christ, — that  we  "may  be  kept  from  the 
evil,"  and  "  sanctified  through  the  truth."  Finding  a  holy 
of  holies  within  us,  we  need  not  curiously  ask  whether  its 
secret  voices  are  of  ourselves  or  of  the  Father.  Christ  felt 
how,  within  the  deeps  of  our  spiritual  nature,  the  personali- 
ties of  heaven  and  earth  might  become  entwined  together 
and  indissolubly  blended  :  "  Thou,  Father,  art  in  me,  and 
I  in  Thee,  and  they  also  one  in  us."  And  so,  the  holy 
spirit  within  us,  the  spirit  of  Christ,  and  the  spirit  of  God, 
are  after  all  but  one ;  —  a  blessed  Trinity,  our  part  in  which 
gives  to  our  souls  a  dignity  most  humbling  yet  august. 


XXVIII. 
CHRISTIAN    SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 


Genesis  hi.  22. 

and  the  lord  god  said,  behold,  the  man  is  become  as  one  of  us,  to 
know  good  and  evil. 

It  is  a  favorite  doctrine  of  one  of  the  wisest  thinkers  of  our 
day,  that  "  if  Adam  had  remained  in  Paradise,  there  had 
been  no  anatomy,  and  no  metaphysics."  In  other  words,  it 
is  only  on  the  lapse  from  the  state  of  health,  that  we  find 
we  have  a  body;  and  on  the  loss  of  innocence,  that  we 
become  conscious  of  a  soul.  Disease  and  wrong  are  the 
awakeners  of  our  reflection :  they  bring  our  outward  pur- 
suits to  a  pause,  and  force  us  to  look  within ;  and  the  extent 
of  our  self-study  and  self-knowledge  may  be  taken  as  a 
measure  of  the  depth  to  which  the  poison  of  evil  has  pene- 
trated into  our  frame.  The  man  who,  instead  of  being  sur- 
rendered to  spontaneous  action,  voluntarily  retires  to  think, 
has  fallen  sick,  and  can  effect  no  more.  The  art  which  has 
recovered  from  its  trance  of  inspiration  and  found  out  that 
it  has  rules,  begins  to  manufacture  and  ceases  to  create. 
The  literature  which  directs  itself  to  an  end,  and  critically 
seeks  the  means,  may  yield  the  produce  of  ingenuity,  but 
not  the  fruit  of  genius.  The  society  which  understands  its 
own  structure,  talks  of  its  gi-ievances,  plumes  itself  on  its 
achievements,  and  prescribes  for  its  own  case,  is  already  in 
a  state  of  inevitable  decadence.  And  the  religion  which 
has  begun  to  inquire^  to  sift  out  its  errors,  and  treasure  up 
its  truths,  has  lost  its  breath  of  healthy  faith,  and  only  gasps 


CHRISTIAN   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  277 

in  death.  With  sighs  and  irresistible  longings,  does  this 
noble  writer  look  back  upon  imaginary  ages  of  involuntary- 
heroism,  when  the  great  and  good  knew  not  their  greatness 
and  goodness,  and  genius  was  found  which  was  a  secret  to 
itself,  and  men  lived  for  God's  sake,  instead  of  for  their  own. 
Could  he  realize  his  dream  of  perfection,  he  would  stock  the 
world  with  unconscious  activity,  and  fill  it  with  men  who 
know  not  what  they  do. 

This  celebrated  paradox  could  never  occupy  a  mind  like 
Mr.  Carlyle's,  did  it  not  envelop  an  important  and  season- 
able truth.  But  before  we  give  ourselves  up  to  the  despond- 
ency it  must  inspire,  it  is  as  well  to  see  whether  there  is 
no  illusion  in  its  sadness;  and  whether  its  pathetic  com- 
plaints may  not  even  be  turned,  by  an  altered  modulation, 
into  a  hymn  of  thanksgiving. 

To  sigh  after  an  unconscious  life,  —  what  is  it  but  to  pro- 
test against  the  yqvj power  of  thought?  To  think  is  not 
merely  to  have  ideas,  —  to  be  the  theatre  across  w^hich 
images  and  emotions  are  marched  ;  —  but  to  sit  in  the  midst 
as  master  of  one's  conceptions ;  to  detain  them  for  audience, 
or  dismiss  them  at  a  glance ;  to  organize  them  into  coher- 
ence and  direct  them  to  an  end.  It  implies  at  every  step 
the  memory  and  deliberate  review  of  past  states  of  mind, 
the  voluntary  estimate  of  them,  and  control  over  them.  It 
is  a  royal  act,  in  which  WQ  possess  the  objects  which  engage 
us,  and  are  not  possessed  by  them.  It  is  an  act  of  intense 
self-consciousness,  whose  whole  energy  consists  in  this,  that 
the  mind  is  kindled  by  seeing  itself :  as  if  the  light  were  to 
become  sensitive,  and  turn  also  to  vision. 

Again,  to  sigh  for  an  unconscious  life,  is  to  protest  against 
conscience.  For  what  is  this  faculty  but,  as  its  name 
denotes,  a  knoioledge  with  one^s-self  of  the  worth  and  excel- 
lence of  the  several  principles  of  action  by  which  we  are 
impelled?  Shall  we  desire  to  be  impelled  by  them  still, 
only  remaining  in  the  dark  as  to  their  value  and  our  obliga- 
tions ?  —  to  be  the  creature  of  each,  as  its  turn  may  come, 


278  CHRISTIAN   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 

without  choice  between  the  baser  and  the  nobler,  or  percep- 
tion of  difference  between  appetite  and  inspiration  ?  Duty 
implies,  in  every  form,  that  a  man  is  entrusted  with  himself ; 
that  he  is  expected  to  overlook  and  direct  himself ;  to  main- 
tain therefore  an  open  eye  on  the  spiritual  world  within, 
and  preserve  throughout  a  sacred  order. 

And  once  more,  to  pray  for  an  unconscious  life,  is  to 
desire  an  incapacity  for  faith.  For  what  is  faith,  but  trust 
in  an  Infinite  and  Holy  One,  of  whom  we  could  have  no 
conception,  if  our  aspirations  did  not  transcend  our  reali- 
ties ;  if  the  ideal  faculty  did  not  survey  the  actual  and  find 
it  wanting  ?  Our  own  spirit  is  the  vestibule  which  we  must 
enter,  as  threshold  to  the  temple  of  the  Eternal,  and  wherein 
alone  we  can  catch  any  whisper  from  the  Holy  of  Holies. 
A  man  who  had  never  found  his  soul,  could  assuredly  never 
see  his  God. 

Scarcely  can  we  admit  a  theory  to  be  true,  which  implies 
that  thought,  duty,  will,  and  faith  are  so  many  diseases 
in  our  constitution,  over  which  it  becomes  us  to  weep  the 
tears  of  protestation.  These,  and  the  self-consciousness 
which  renders  us  capable  of  them,  are  the  supreme  glory  of 
our  nature  ;  raising  it  above  the  mere  instinctive  life  of  the 
brute  creation,  making  it  agent  as  well  as  instrument,  and 
giving  it  two  worlds  to  live  in  instead  of  one. 

If,  however,  this  power  of  self-consciousness  be  assigned 
to  us  as  our  special  dignity  and  strength,  it  may  be  turned 
to  our  weakness  and  our  shame.  The  peculiar  faculty  in 
man,  of  overlooking  himself,  is  but  the  needful  condition  and 
natural  preparation  for  another,  —  that  of  directing  himself. 
Why  show  him  his  place,  but  that  he  may  choose  his  way  ? 
Why  wake  him  up,  —  alone  of  all  creatures, — if  the  night- 
mare of  necessity  is  to  sit  upon  him  still  ?  If  his  course  be 
determined  for  him,  and  not  by  him,  why  not  lock  him  fast, 
like  all  similar  natures,  in  the  interior  of  his  perceptions  and 
impulses,  as  in  the  scenery  of  a  dream,  instead  of  carrying 
him  outside  to  survey  them  ?     A  thing  that  is  entirely  at 


CHRISTIAN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  279 

the  disposal  of  foreign  forces,  that  is  moved  hither  and 
thither  by  laws  imposed  upon  it,  would  plainly  be  none  the 
better  for  the  gift  of  self-knowledge.  If  the  planet,  urged 
through  an  inflexible  orbit  by  determinate  mechanism,  were 
made  aware  of  its  own  history,  no  hair's-breadth  of  guidance 
would  the  revelation  give.  If  the  tree  could  study  its  own 
physiology,  its  growth  would  be  no  nobler,  and  its  fruit  no 
fairer.  If  the  animal  could  scrutinize  its  instincts,  they 
would  perform  no  new  function,  and  afford  no  happier  guid- 
ance. And  if  man  can  superintend  his  own  'mind,  it  is 
because  lie  is  not,  like  the  i3lanet,  the  tree,  the  brute,  the 
mere  theatre  on  which  forces  display  themselves,  but  a  fresh 
power  in  himself,  able  to  originate  action  in  the  same  sense 
in  which  God  originates  the  universe.  Every  sentient  being 
perceives  enough  for  its  own  direction :  if  you  look  round 
the  circle  of  its  perceptions,  you  ascertain  the  sources  of  its 
guidance.  Animals,  that  are  at  the  exclusive  disposal  of  the 
external  objects  related  to  them,  are  alive  to  the  external 
world  alone.  Man,  capable  of  withstanding  extrinsic  agen- 
cies, and  having  a  creative  centre  within  him,  is  alive  to  his 
own  soul  as  well.  Shut  us  fast  up  in  the  line  of  nature,  and 
nature  is  all  that  we  want  to  know.  Set  us  free  to  stand 
above  nature,  and  live  with  an  upper  region  of  the  spirit 
stretching  beyond  her  realm,  not  subject  only  but  also  lord, 
and  we  need  for  the  first  time  that  self-consciousness  which 
is  the  condition  of  liberty,  and  the  first  element  of  wisdom. 
It  is  because  we  have  a  work  of  choice  assigned  us,  because 
we  are  entrusted  with  the  power  to  control  our  instincts, 
and  subject  the  spontaneous  natural  life  to  the  voluntary 
and  the  spiritual,  that  we  alone  have  the  faculty  of  reflec- 
tion. It  is  the  superior  light  awarded  to  our  special  obliga- 
tions. Self-consciousness,  thus  superadded  to  our  mere 
sentient  nature,  becomes,  by  this  association,  not  less  our 
temptation  than  our  dignity.  If  pain  and  pleasure  consti- 
tuted the  ultimate  interests  of  life,  we  could  dispense  with 
the   attribute  of  self-inspection   as  well  as  the  brutes  :  in 


280  CHRISTIAN   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 

short,  we  should  be  in  that  case  but  a  nobler  sort  of  brute, 
differing  from  other  species  only  in  having  more  numerous 
resources  for  our  sensitive  nature,  —  a  richer  table  spread 
for  more  varied  appetites,  of  the  palate  or  of  the  mind. 
Senses,  however  multiplied ;  taste,  however  exquisite ;  ca- 
pacities for  enjoyment,  never  so  fine,  —  want  no  faculty  of 
reflection,  and  must  know  that  it  is  not  for  them.  But' 
while  it  is  not  for  their  sakes,  it  is  of  necessity  in  their 
presence,  and  within  their  hearing,  that  the  arcana  of  life 
are  revealed  to  us.  Appetite  and  conscience,  like  two 
spirits  of  the  lower  and  the  upper  world,  live  together  in 
the  same  house,  so  that  the  revelation  made  for  one  is  little 
likely  to  remain  secret  from  the  other;  and  it  is  in  the 
power  of  the  fiend  to  steal  the  privity  of  the  angel,  and 
break  the  seals  of  the  divinest  message.  Hence  there  comes 
about  an  impious  abuse  of  the  godlike  gift  of  self-conscious 
life  ;  and  instead  of  serving  as  the  handmaid  of  duty,  it  is 
degraded  into  the  pander  of  appetite.  Nothing  can  be 
baser  than  this  sweet  poisoning  of  moral  truth  for  the  relish 
of  sin.  Thus  to  use  our  human  secret  as  a  cunning  way  of 
getting  an  advantage  over  the  brutes,  is  a  downright  be- 
trayal of  the  confidence  of  God,  —  a  bartering  in  hell  of 
that  which  we  have  overheard  in  heaven. 

This  faculty,  then,  of  reflection  upon  himself,  his  life,  his 
nature,  his  relations,  is  the  peculiarity  which,  in  proportion 
as  it  becomes  marked,  places  man  at  a  distance  from  the 
brutes.  When  applied  to  its  true  purpose,  of  surveying  his 
responsibilities,  judging  his  modes  of  activity  and  affection, 
and  enforcing  a  Christian  order  throughout  his  soul,  it 
becomes  a  godlike  prerogative,  and  lifts  him  to  an  angel- 
life.  When  perverted  to  a  false  purpose,  of  prying  into  his 
passive  sensations,  and  discovering  the  means  of  getting 
drunk  with  instinctive  pleasures,  and  turning  the  healthy 
hunger  of  nature  into  the  feverish  greed  of  Epicurism,  it 
becomes  a  fallen  spirit,  and  allies  its  possessor  with  the 
fiends.      Man,   the    self-conscious    animal,   is    the    saddest 


CHRISTIAN   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  281 

spectacle  in  creation  :  man,  the  self-conscious  Christian, 
one  of  the  noblest.  Reflecting  vitality  is  hypochondria  and 
disease  :  reflecting  spirituality  is  clearness  and  strength. 

This  general  doctrine  has  a  direct  bearing  upon  a  ques- 
tion which  is  often  raised,  and  which  presses  upon  the  atten- 
tion of  the  present  age  with  an  anxious  earnestness  :  — 
What  is  the  effect  on  human  character  of  a  high  and  com- 
plicated civilization  ?  Are  its  vast  accumulation  of  commod- 
ities, its  rapid  circulation  of  activity  and  thought,  its  minute 
division  of  employments,  its  close  interlacing  of  interests, 
its  facilities  for  class-organization,  to  be  looked  upon  with 
joy  and  gratulation,  as  so  many  triumphs  of  intelligence  and 
refinement  over  ignorance  and  barbarism ;  or  with  grief 
and  consteniation,  as  the  gathering  of  an  uncontrollable  and 
aimless  power,  destined,  like  the  mad  Hercules,  to  destroy 
the  offspring  of  its  strength?  The  exulting  and  jubilant 
feeling  on  this  matter  which  prevailed  some  years  ago,  is 
now  generally  replaced,  I  believe,  in  thoughtful  minds,  by 
a  more  sober  and  even  melancholy  order  of  expectations. 
The  change  may  be  justified,  if  it  be  made  a  step,  not 
to  passive  despair,  but  to  the  faithful  and  energetic  per- 
formance of  a  new  class  of  social  duties.  Let  us  search  for 
some  principle  which  may  aid  in  the  solution  of  this  great 
problem. 

The  specific  effect  on  human  character  produced  by  a  high 
state  of  civilization  may  be  expressed  in  a  single  phrase  :  it 
develops  the  self-consciousness  of  men  to  an  intense  degree, 
or,  to  borrow  the  venerable  language  of  Scripture,  immeas- 
urably increases  their  "knowledge  of  good  and  evil."  This 
indeed  arises  necessarily  from  our  living  so  closely  in  the 
presence  of  each  other.  A  perfectly  solitary  being,  who 
had  a  whole  planet  to  himself,  would  remain,  I  suppose,  for 
ever  incapable  of  knowing  himself  and  reflecting  upon  his 
thoughts  and  actions.  He  would  continue,  like  other  creat- 
ures, to  have  feelings  and  ideas,  but  would  not  make  them 
his  objects   and  bring  them   under  his  will.      This   human 


282  CHRISTIAN   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 

peculiarity  would  remain  latent  in  him,  till  he  was  intro- 
duced before  the  face  of  some  kindred  being,  and  he  saw 
his  nature  reflected  in  another  mind.  Looking  into  the 
eyes  of  a  living  companion,  changing  with  laughter  and  with 
tears,  flashing  with  anger,  drooping  with  sleep,  he  finds  the 
mirror  of  himself ;  the  passions  of  his  inner  life  are  revealed 
to  him  ;  and  he  becomes  a  'person,,  instead  of  a  living  thing. 
In  proportion  as  society  collects  more  thickly  around  a  man, 
this  primitive  change  deepens  and  extends :  the  unconscious, 
instinctive  life,  which  remains  predominant  in  savage  tribes, 
and  visible  enough  in  sparse  populations  everywhere,  grad- 
ually retires.  He  knows  all  about  his  appetites,  and  how  to 
serve  them ;  can  name  his  feelings,  feign  them,  stifle  them ; 
can  manage  his  thoughts,  fly  from  them,  conceal  them;  can 
meditate  his  actions,  link  them  into  a  system,  protect  them 
from  interrupting  impulse,  and  direct  them  to  an  end ;  can 
go  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  life  with  mind  grossly 
familiar  with  its  wonders,  or  reverently  studious  of  its  wis- 
dom ;  and  look  on  death,  with  the  eye  of  an  undertaker,  or 
through  the  tears  of  a  saint.  In  an  old  and  artificial  com- 
munity, all  the  common  products  of  experience  appear  stale 
and  exhausted,  and  ingenuity  is  plied  for  the  means  of 
awakening  some  new  emotion.  The  inmost  recesses  of  "our 
nature  are  curiously  explored,  and  its  most  sacred  feelings 
submitted  to  the  coolest  criticism,  and  brought  under  the 
canons  of  art.  The  self-consciousness  of  individuals  is  shared 
by  society  at  large :  it  studies  itself,  talks  of  its  past,  is  anx- 
ious about  its  future  ;  becomes  aware  of  its  own  mechanism, 
and  tries  to  estimate  its  strength.  And  with  a  universal 
discussion  of  wide  social  problems,  an  unparalleled  egotism 
and  isolation  are  apt  to  seize  upon  every  sect,  class,  and 
nation. 

If  this  be  true,  then  we  must  admit  that  a  high  civiliza- 
tion unfolds  the  characteristic  endowment  of  our  nature ; 
and  so  far,  may  be  said  to  raise  and  dignify  it,  and  leave 
far  behind  the  mere  animal  and  instinctive  life  which  be- 


CHRISTIAN  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  283 

longs  to  beings  of  lower  grade.  The  most  ignorant  man 
in  England  possesses  a  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  and  a 
various  skill  in  commanding  them,  which  the  hoariest  patri- 
arch in  a  barbarian  village  would  look  upon  with  awe. 

It  is  only  however  in  the  naturalist's  scale,  not  in  the 
Christian,  that  man  is  elevated  by  the  influences  of  arti- 
ficial society.  He  becomes  a  well-marked  specimen  of  his 
kind,  broadly  separated  from  other  races  upon  earth  :  but 
how  he  ranks  among  spiritual  beings,  —  whether  he  ap- 
proaches the  confines  of  heaven,  or  touches  the  verge  of 
hell,  —  is  wholly  undecided  still.  Superior  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil  involves  no  change  in  the  proportionate  love 
of  th'm  ;  self-consciousness  being  a  neutral  faculty,  the  con- 
dition alike  of  whatever  is  pure  and  noble,  and  of  all  that 
is  most  foul  and  mean  ;  the  ground  at  once  of  the  fidelity 
of  Abdiel  and  the  guilt  of  Lucifer.  Hence  it  is  that  the 
mere  progress  of  civilization  involves  no  spiritual  advance, 
and  miserably  disappoints  those  who  trusted  that  it  was  to 
deliver  men  from  the  yoke  of  their  follies  and  their  sins. 
Vast  as  is  the  spectacle  of  our  material  magnificence,  and 
intense  as  may  be  the  traces  of  mental  vitality,  there  is 
no  certain  decline  of  selfishness  and  corruption  in  any  class : 
or  if  on  the  right  hand  you  can  point  to  some  evil  ex- 
tinguished, on  the  left  there  springs  some  new  enormity  to 
balance  the  success.  How  many  are  there  who  basely 
avail  themselves  of  all  the  ease  and  luxury  of  our  compli- 
cated civilization,  compared  with  the  few  who  feel  its  obli- 
gations, and  take  up  its  work !  How  little  security  do  the 
most  practised  thought  and  refined  scholarship  seem  to  af- 
ford against  shameful  Jesuitry  and  abject  superstition ! 
And  how  often  is  the  nimble  intelligence  of  the  artisan 
wholly  unproductive  of  any  self-restraint  or  reverence ! 
The  mere  cleverness  indeed  of  the  modern  townsman,  de- 
rived from  the  heated  and  sensitive  atmosphere  around 
him,  implies  no  hardy  spiritual  life  within  him,  and  en- 
sures no  moral  thoughtfulness  or  wisdom.     It  is  a  mere 


284  CHRISTIAN   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 

aptitude  for  the  germination  of  ideas  of  any  sort ;  whereby 
flowers  of  Paradise  may  come  sprouting  up  without  ripen- 
ing their  proper  fruits,  or  the  deadly  nightshade  drop  its 
poiso^ii  unperceived.  Intellectual  irritability  may  leave  the 
coj  jFjience  wholly  dead.  And  assuredly  only  that  knowl- 
edge which  a  man  wins  for  himself  by  the  spontaneous 
efforts  of  his  own  mind  has  the  proper  and  purifying  effect 
of  truth  on  him,  and  renders  his  nature  dearer  than  it  was 
before. 

And  unhappily  this  self -acquired  knowledge  and  faculty 
are,  in  one  respect,  less  likely  to  be  found  among  us  in  these 
days  than  of  old.  The  direct  influence  of  occupation  is  less 
and  less  favorable  to  their  production.  Nothing  that  has 
ever  been  advanced  by  economists  can  convince  me,  that 
the  extreme  division  of  employments  which  characterizes 
modern  industrial  operations,  is  any  thing  but  deadening 
and  unhealthy  to  the  mental  nature  of  those  engaged  in 
them.  To  spend  every  working  day  of  half  or  the  whole 
of  life,  not  in  a  craft  of  various  nicety  and  skill,  but  in  a 
solitary  process  of  a  single  manufacture,  in  tying  threads  or 
pointing  pins,  can  assuredly  give  no  discipline  to  any  fac- 
ulty, unless  those  of  muscular  alacrity  or  mental  patience  : 
and  compared  with  the  work  of  an  earlier  world,  I  should 
as  little  call  this  skilly  as  I  should  class  among  literary  men 
a  scribe  who  should  devote  his  life  to  crossing  t  s  and  dot- 
ting i  s.  With  long  habit  the  monotony  of  such  a  lot  may 
cease  to  be  positively  felt.  But  it  taxes  no  worthy  power : 
it  enlists  no  natural  interest :  it  presents  only  vacancy  and 
listlessness  to  the  thought :  and  the  more  so,  as  the  work  is 
another's,  and  not  the  laborer's  own.  The  occupation  does 
not  educate  the  man.  It  may  be  tnie,  in  point  of  fact, 
that  workers  of  this  class  are  as  intelligent  as  others.  But 
if  so,  this  is  owing  to  influences  extrinsic  to  the  cause  on 
which  I  dwell,  and  in  spite  of  it ;  especially  to  their  resi- 
dence in  the  stimulant  atmosphere  of  great  cities,  and  tho 
habit  of  association  with  large  bodies  of  men.    And  this  in- 


CHRISTIAN   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  285 

tcllectual  counteraction  itself,  there  is  reason  to  fear,  is  pur- 
chased at  the  cost  of  vast  moral  dangers.  For,  in  proportion 
as  men  cease  to  have  an  intelligent  interest  in  their  work, 
and  go  through  it  with  the  weariness  of  a  necessary  task, 
do  they  quit  it  with  a  susceptibility  .to  foreign  excite- 
ments, and  a  more  open  avidity  for  the  temptations  of  the 
passions  :  and  losing  the  even  glow  of  a  constant  activity, 
they  fall  under  fearful  inducement  to  alternate  the  stagnant 
blood  of  dulness  with  the  throbbing  pulse  of  revelry. 

Who  then  can  be  so  blind  as  to  deny  the  dangers  amid 
which  we  live  ?  We  have  created  around  us  a  scale  of  op- 
portunity, and  temptation,  and  risk,  frightfully  vast.  We 
are  wholly  out  of  reach  of  the  narrow  safety  of  simple  and 
instinctive  life.  We  stand  in  the  presence  of  a  gigantic 
amount  of  good  and  evil.  Yet  we  have  not  stronger  spirits 
to  bear  the  mightier  strain.  So  far  as  our  condition  forms 
us,  we  are  less  complete  men,  and  therefore  of  less  massive 
stability,  than  were  our  forefathers.  The  moral  structure  of 
society  partakes  of  the  character  of  those  huge  machines 
which  have  done  so  much  to  make  at  once  its  wealth  and 
weakness :  each  man  being  but  as  a  screw  or  pinion  of  the 
whole,  locked  into  a  system  that  holds  him  fast  or  whirls 
him  on,  and  having  no  longer  a.  separate  symmetry  and 
worth.  The  results  indeed  which  are  turned  out  from  this 
involuntary  co-operation  of  parts,  are  of  overwhelming 
magnitude  and  wonderful  variety.  Our  country  is  a  vast 
congeries  of  exaggerations.  Enormous  wealth  and  saddest 
poverty,  sumptuous  idleness  and  saddest  toil,  princely  pro- 
vision for  learning  and  the  most  degrading  ignorance,  a 
large  amount  of  laborious  philanthropy,  but  a  larger  of  un- 
conquered  misery  and  sin,  subsist  side  by  side,  and  terrify 
us  by  the  preternatural  contrast  of  brilliant  coloring  with 
blackest  shade.  It  is  appallmg  to  think  of  the  moral  cost  (a 
cost  most  needless  too)  at  which  England  has  become  mate- 
rially great.  Do  you  found  that  greatness  on  the  culture  of 
the  soil  ?     Alas  !  where  is  the  laborer  by  whose  hand  it  has 


286  CHRISTIAN   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 

been  tilled  ?  In  a  cabin  with  his  children,  where  the  do- 
mestic decencies  cannot  be,  and  where  Christ,  did  he  enter, 
might  give  his  pity,  but  could  hardly  ask  obedience.  Or  do 
you  point  rather  to  our  mineral  wealth  ?  See  the  picture, 
which  has  scarcely  ceased  to  be  true,  of  crawling  women, 
and  harnessed  children,  of  whose  toil  this  glory  comes !  I 
know  not  which  is  most  heathenish,  the  guilty  negligence 
of  our  lofty  men,  or  the  fearful  degradation  of  the  low. 
But  this  I  do  believe,  that  unless  some  holier  spirit  dart 
quickly  down  for  the  conversion  of  our  rich  and  great, 
put  into  them  a  wise  and  Christian  heart,  and  dispose  them 
to  sacrifices  never  dreamt  of  yet,  our  social  repentance  will 
come  too  late,  and  we  shall  die  with  our  Jerusalem,  seeing 
only  the  image  of  a  tearful  Christ,  and  hearing  the  words, 
"  Oh  that  thou  hadst  known,  at  least  in  this  thy  day,  the 
things  that  belong  to  thy  peace !  " 

Moreover,  we  live,  as  we  have  seen,  in  an  age  of  excited 
and  self-conscious  men.  And  in  all  minds  awakened  and 
reflective  to  even  a  very  moderate  degree,  there  arises  and 
accumulates  a  secret  fund  of  dissatisfaction  ;  a  dark,  mys- 
terious speck  of  care  upon  the  heart,  which  turns  to  a  point 
of  explosive  ruin  in  bad  men,  to  a  seed  of  fruitful  sorrow 
with  the  good.  The  natural  mind,  untouched  by  religious 
wisdom,  always  refers  its  wants  and  miseries  to  outward 
things,  which  alone  it  strives  to  mend  and  change.  So 
this  hidden  discontent  leads  men  to  love  themselves  the 
more,  and  quarrel  with  their  neighbors,  until  they  become 
Christians  in  soul :  and  then  it  shows  them  a  far  higher 
truth,  and  leads  them  to  love  their  neighbors  and  reproach 
themselves.  The  strife  and  struggle  which  are  inseparable 
from  our  self-conscious  life,  are  directed  to  mutual  hate, 
while  under  the  guidance  of  self ;  to  common  asjjiration, 
under  the  discipline  of  Christ.  Who  can  doubt  that  under 
our  present  spiritual  condition,  it  is  the  anarchy,  and  not 
the  love,  to  which  this  feeling  tends?  And  who  would  not 
pray  for  an  infusion  of  the  light  of  God  to  paint  the  bow  of 


CHRISTIAN   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  287 

peace  and  promise  on  the  cloud  where  the  muffled  thunder 
growls  ?  Oh  that  to  us,  otherwise  than  to  Elijah  in  the  cave, 
it  may  be  given  to  hear  the  still  small  voice,  not  after,  but 
before,  the  strong  wind,  the  earthquake,  and  the  fire  ! 

To  avert  the  dangers,  and  remedy  the  peculiar  evils  of 
our  social  condition,  many  conjoint  agencies  are  doubtless 
required.  But  there  is  not  one  whose  neglect  offers  more 
certain  peril,  whose  right  and  timely  application  jDresents 
more  reasonable  hope,  than  a  Christian  training  for  the  new 
generation  of  our  people.  Could  this,  indeed,  be  univer- 
sally given,  could  all  good  men  set  to  work  with  one  heart 
and  hand,  and  see  to  it  that  no  desert  spot  be  unreclaimed, 
all  would  yet  be  well.  But,  alas !  we  are  so  afraid  of  each 
other's  doctrines,  that  we  cannot  cure  each  other's  sins  ;  and 
while  the  most  appalling  evils  threaten  us,  and  more  than 
once  the  symptomatic  smoke  has  puffed  up  from  the  social 
volcano,  we  stand  round  the  crater  and  discuss  theology  ! 
Ah !  how  much  more  is  there  in  our  Christendom  of  the 
contentious  mind,  than  of  the  disciple's  pure  and  unper- 
verted  heart !  Which,  I  would  know,  is  the  worse  evil,  an 
actual  gin-shop,  or  a  possible  heresy  ?  Yet  in  dread  of  the 
latter,  we  cannot  unite  together  in  the  only  means  of  put- 
ting down  the  former.  However,  by  such  means  as  our 
infirmities  still  leave  open,  we  must  go  and  teach  this  people. 
In  proportion  as  their  occupations  educate  them  less,  and 
their  circumstances  tempt  them  more,  a  direct  and  proposed 
culture  must  be  provided;  —  a  culture  which  keeps  in  view 
the  great  primary  end  of  responsible  existence  ;  which  looks 
not  at  their  trade,  but  at  their  souls,  and  brings  them  not  as 
apt  servants  to  the  mill,  but  as  holy  children  to  their  God. 
Education,  in  the  Christian  sense,  is  truly  everlasting :  child- 
hood preparing  for  maturity,  maturity  for  age,  and  the  whole 
of  life  for  death  and  heaven.  The  early  training  of  the 
young  is  but  that  portion  of  this  series,  which  prepares  for 
self-government  and  the  exercise  of  free-will  within  the 
limits  of  Christ's  law.     Doubtless  the  responsibility  of  this 


288  CHRISTIAN   SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 

task  rests,  by  the  decree  of  Nature  and  Providence,  with 
the  parents  to  whom  the  young  life  is  committed  as  a  trust ; 
nor  will  it  ever  have  settled  on  its  genuine  basis,  till  there 
shall  exist,  in  every  class,  an  effective  domestic  sentiment, 
sufficient  to  sustain  it.  But  amid  the  grievous  decay  of  the 
old  and  healthful  parental  conscience,  it  becomes  needful  to 
awaken  a  wider  interest  in  the  work,  and  to  call  upon  neigh- 
borhood and  country  to  take  up  the  neglected  office  of  the 
home.  Nor  should  any  individual,  or  any  family,  exempt 
from  the  constant  cares  of  subsistence,  be  held  to  have  dis- 
charged the  obligations  of  the  Christian  life,  till  they  freely 
give  some  steady  help  to  this  essential  work ;  and  provide 
some  fitting  care  for  the  neglected  child,  as  still  an  infant 
disciple  claimed  by  the  arms,  and  consecrated  by  the  bene- 
diction, of  the  heavenly  Christ. 


XXIX. 

THE    UNCLOUDED    HEART. 


John  v.  30. 

mt  judgment  is  just,  because  i  seek  not  mine  own  will,  but  thb 
will  of  the  father  which  hath  sent  me. 

For  the  training  of  goodness,  the  ancient  reliance  was  on 
the  right  discipline  of  habit  and  affection  :  the  modern  is 
rather  on  illumination  of  the  understanding-.  The  notion 
extensively  prevails  that  vice,  being  only  the  mistaken  pur- 
suit of  that  personal  happiness  for  which  virtue  is  an  equal 
but  more  sagacious  aspirant,  is  a  blunder  of  the  intellect ;  a 
defective  or  erroneous  view  of  things ;  and,  like  the  optical 
delusions  incident  to  weak  eyes,  to  be  cured  by  use  of  the 
most  approved  instruments  for  seeing  clearly.  The  guilty 
and  degraded  will,  it  is  said,  differs  from  the  pure  and 
noble,  not  by  aiming  at  a  less  innocent  end,  but  by  being 
less  happy  in  its  choice  of  means :  point  out  the  miscalcijla- 
tion,  instruct  it  to  weigh  causes  with  greater  nicety  in 
future,  and  you  cannot  fail  to  promote  the  needful  reforma- 
tion. The  sinner  is  but  the  most  deplorable  of  fools ;  and 
if  you  banish  folly,  you  Extinguish  sin. 

Tliis  prescription  for  the  advancement  of  human  excel- 
lence possesses  an  apparent  simplicity,  which  gives  it  a 
great  attraction  to  some  minds.  All  the  varieties  of  char- 
acter among  men  it  reduces  to  an  arrangement  easily  under- 
stood ;  distributing  them  along  a  single  line,  in  the  order  of 
their  intelligence.  It  seems  to  take  away  all  mystery  from 
the  moral  emotions,  whose  rapidity  and  intensity  had  awed 
and  startled  us  ;   and  by  converting  them  into  plain  judg- 

19 


290  THE   UNCLOUDED   HEART. 

ments  of  the  intellect,  makes  them  the  voice  of  man  instead 
of  God.  Unhappily,  however,  the  value  of  this  tempting 
theory  disappears  the  moment  we  seek  to  use  it.  Let  its 
most  ingenious  advocate  try  it  upon  the  miser,  the  cheat, 
the  insane  candidate  for  glory ;  let  him  reason  with  them 
on  their  ignorance  and  imbecility  of  judgment,  expose  every 
fallacy  of  self-justification,  and  establish  against  them  an 
unanswerable  case  of  mistake  ;  and  then  let  him  come  and 
tell  us  whether  he  has  made  them  generous,  just,  and  meek. 
Perhaps  he  will  confess  his  failure,  but  persevere  in  ascrib- 
ing it  to  the  unhappy  state  of  his  pupils'  understanding, 
rather  than  any  distinct  affection  of  their  passions.  "  I 
could  not  convince  them,"  he  will  say,  "  of  their  error ;  or, 
if  my  arguments  impressed  them  at  the  moment,  the  per- 
suasion passed  away ;  and  habit  proved  the  more  successful 
advocate,  because  it  was,  though  not  the  truer,  yet  the  more 
importunate."  But  were  not  your  appeals  just  and  forcible, 
and  your  instructions  indisputably  true  ?  Then  there  must 
be  something  in  the  heart  where  evil  passions  dwell  that 
baffles  the  chance  of  reason,  that  takes  from  evidence  its 
natural  force,  and  gives  to  error  an  unmerited  triumph. 
And  what  advantage  do  we  gain  by  representing  men  as 
the  subjects,  and  their  morality  as  truths,  of  the  pure  intel- 
lect, if  it  be  an  intellect  that  may  lose  its  distinguishing 
function,  and  become  inaccessible  to  just  persuasion?  What 
comfort  is  it  to  know  that  guilt  is  only  error,  if  it  be  error 
80  peculiar  as  to  be  insensible  to  the  merits  of  the  most  un- 
questionable proof  ?  Why  tell  us  Itiat  right  and  wrong  are 
but  the  love  of  happiness  making  its  computations,  when  it 
is  admitted  that  passion  was  never  computed  out  of  the 
heart,  and  that  self-interest  itself  is  whiffed  away  by  the 
tempest  of  its  rage  ?  It  is  true  that  you  have  only  to  give 
the  slave  of  guilty  passions  a  different  view  of  the  objects 
of  desire,  and  he  is  set  free  from  his  miserable  thraldom. 
It  is  equally  true  that  you  have  oiily  to  make  the  collapsed 
paralytic  start  up  and  run,  —  and  he  will  be  well. 


THE   UNCLOUDED   HEART.  291 

"No  doubt,  the  weakest  reason  and  the  most  ungovernable 
desires  are  constantly  found  together.  But  there  are  at 
least  two  ways  of  reading  connected  appearances  like  these. 
The  attempt  to  resolve  all  the  phenomena  of  character  into 
a  condition  of  the  understanding  is  a  futile  exaggeration. 
The  great  author  of  Christianity,  reversing  the  order  of 
the  explanation,  placed  the  truth  in  a  juster  point  of  view. 
He  well  knew  that  if,  sometimes,  because  the  reason  is  dark- 
ened, the  passions  are  awake,  it  more  often  happens  that 
because  the  passions  are  awake,  the  reason  is  eclipsed.  To 
him  it  could  not  but  be  clear,  from  consciousness  itself,  that 
pure  sympathies  make  a  clear  intellect,  and,  with  their  sweet 
breath,  wonderfully  open  to  the  mind  new  perceptions  of 
things  heavenly.  While  auditors,  feeling  "  that  never  man 
spake  like  this  man,"  asked  "  how  knoweth  he  letters,  hav- 
ing never  learned  ?  "  Jesus  led  them  to  a  different  explana^ 
tion  of  his  wisdom,  "  My  judgment  is  just,  because  I  seek 
not  mine  own  will,  but  the  will  of  the  Father  who  hath  sent 
me."  And  he  instructed  others  how  to  gain  a  like  discern- 
ment of  things  divine,  when  he  said,  "  If  any  will  do  his 
will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God,  or 
whether  I  speak  of  myself."  The  words  express  a  universal 
truth.  Whatever  be  the  work  on  which  the  judgment  may 
be  engaged,  it  will  be  invariably  aided  by  the  natural  sym- 
pathies of  a  just,  disinterested,  and  holy  mind. 

Even  in  his  abstruser  toils,  these  are  often  the  wise  man's 
mightiest  power.  The  most  turbid  clouds  that  darken  the 
vision  of  reason  are  those  which  interest,  and  fear,  and 
ambition  spread  :  and  these  the  pure  affections  sweep  away. 
They  give  to  the  soul  the  unspeakable  freedom  of  just 
intents  and  elevated  trusts  :  and  where  there  exist  no  com- 
plicated aims,  no  retarding  anxieties,  but  the  whole  absolute 
energy  of  a  mind  is  gathered  upon  the  search  of  truth,  it  is 
amazing  what  vast  achievements  may  be  made.  How  often 
will  a  child,  by  mere  force  of  unconsciousness  and  simplicity, 
penetrate  to  the  centre  of  some  great  truth  with  a  startling 


292  THE   UNCLOUDED   HEART. 

ease  and  directness  !  And  in  this  the  greatness  of  genius 
is  like  the  power  of  a  child  :  it  is  as  much  moral  as  intellect- 
ual ;  it  arises  from  emotions  so  distinct  and  earnest  as  to 
secure  singleness  of  purpose  and  vivacity  of  expression ; 
from  some  absorbing  reverence  which  disenthrals  the  mind 
from  lower  passions,  and  gives  it  courage  to  be  true.  There 
is  always  a  presumption  that  a  pure-hearted  will  be  a  right- 
minded  man  ;  and  it  is  delightful  to  see  such  a  one  stand 
up  before  the  ambitious  sophist,  and  dart  on  his  ingenuities 
a  clear  ray  of  conscience  that  scatters  them  like  mist.  The 
divine  light  of  a  good  mind  is  too  much  for  the  mystifica- 
tions of  guilt.  ''  The  foolishness  of  God  is  wiser  than  the 
wisdom  of  men." 

All  the  great  hindrances  to  impartiality  in  the  quest  of 
truth  have  obviously  their  seat  in  some  class  of  selfish  feel- 
ings. Interest,  promising  to  one  set  of  opinions  emolument 
and  honor,  and  to  their  opposite  poverty  and  disgrace ;  or 
passing  over  to  the  future  world,  and  there  displaying  to  us 
the  alternative  of  absolute  blessedness  or  ruin,  —  crushes  the 
natural  justice  of  the  understanding,  and  offers  stupendous 
temptations  to  palter  with  evidence,  and  shuflle  inconvenient 
doubts  away.  No  inquirer  can  fix  a  direct  and  clear-sighted 
gaze  towards  truth,  who  is  casting  side  glances  all  the  while 
on  the  prospects  of  his  soul.  Again,  the  excessive  eagerness 
about  reputation  produces  a  thousand  pitiable  distortions  of 
understanding.  In  one  it  takes  the  shape  of  a  determina- 
tion to  be  original  (which,  I  suppose,  never  befell  any  man 
by  deliberate  resolve),  and  so  extinguishes  his  perception  of 
all  ancient  excellence,  and  confines  his  appreciation  to  his 
own  obscurities  and  affectations.  In  another  it  passes  into 
an  opposite  folly,  —  the  pride  of  being  peculiarly  moderate 
and  sound  ;  and  so  he  dreads  eccentricities  far  more  than 
falsehoods,  and  weighs  proprieties,  instead  of  investigating 
truths.  And  what  is  the  partisanship  that  wearies  every 
good  man's  heart,  but  a  collection  of  selfish  feelings,  fatal  to 
all  the  equities  of  reason ;  a  gross  association  of  the  idea  of 


THE   UNCLOUDED   HEART.  293 

Belf  with  abstract  questions  ?  It  is  said  to  be  of  service  in 
keeping  alive  the  mental  activity  of  the  community  ;  but 
how  poor  a  service,  when  the  activity  consists  so  largely  in 
the  ferment  of  bad  passions,  and  conducts  the  tranquil  tasks 
of  reason  in  the  spirit  of  a  gamester.  Argument,  in  such 
case,  loses  its  natural  power  of  persuasion,  and  operates  like 
a  weapon  of  vengeance ;  only  raising  higher  the  note  of 
triumph  in  those  who  wield  it,  and  irritating  instead  of  con- 
vincing the  minds  that  it  assails.  Indeed,  it  is  humiliating 
to  think  how  poor  a  pittance  of  reasoning  conducts  the 
gigantic  mutations  of  human  sentiment ;  how  arguments,  at 
which  a  quiet  understanding  would  smile,  rise  to  grave  im- 
portance in  the  confusion  of  polemic  rage  ;  how  light  the 
sophistries  which  sway  the  tide  of  success  when  the  hosts 
of  party  wrestle  in  the  fight ;  how  foolish  the  sounds  that 
seem  to  award  possession  of  that  great  capitol  of  opinion 
which  overlooks  the  emi3ire  of  the  world. 

Though,  however,  narrow  feelings  and  selfish  desires,  in- 
truding on  the  province  of  the  understanding,  prevent  its 
judgments  from  being  just,  it  is  not  true  that  their  simple 
absence  constitutes  the  best  state  for  speculative  research. 
It  is  sometimes  said,  that,  were  it  possible,  the  inquirer's 
mind  should  be  absolutely  emptied  of  every  desire,  and  be 
exposed,  in  entire  passiveness,  to  the  action  of  evidence 
brought  before  its  tribunal ;  that  a  being  incapable  of  emo- 
tion, a  mere  machine  for  performing  logical  operations, 
would  be  the  most  efficient  discoverer.  But  surely  his  im- 
partiality, however  perfect,  would  accomplish  nothing  with- 
out an  impulse  :  intensity  of  intellectual  action  is  needed,  as 
well  as  clearness  of  intellectual  view.  And  this  will  b6 
most  certainly  found,  not  in  one  who  follows  the  light  without 
deep  love  of  it ;  not  in  one  who  simply  finds  it  a  personal 
convenience,  and  desires  it  for  its  use ;  not  even  in  one  who 
has  simply  a  relish  for  mental  occupations,  and  prolongs 
them  from  pure  taste ;  but  in  him  who  traverses  the  realm 
of  thought,  as  if  "seeking  the  will  of  One  that  sent  him ; " 


294  THE    UNCLOUDED   HEART. 

who  reverently  looks  on  the  features  of  truth  as  on  the  face 
of  God,  and  listens  to  its  accents  as  to  its  whispered  oracle  ; 
who  trusts  it  with  a  "  love  that  casteth  out  fear,"  and  feels 
on  him  the  blessed  light  of  heaven,  when  bigots  pronounce 
him  in  a  dreadful  gloom. 

On  questions  of  practical  morals^  yet  more  emphatically 
than  on  subjects  of  speculative  research,  is  it  true  that  pure 
sympathies  produce  a  clear  intellect,  and  that  his  judgments 
are  most  likely  to  be  just,  who  most  habitually  seeks  the 
will  of  the  eternal  Father.  The  moral  habits  and  tastes  of 
men  form  their  opinions,  much  more  frequently  than  their 
opinions  form  their  habits :  —  so  that  often  their  theoretical 
sentiments  are  little  more  than  a  systematic  self-defence 
after  the  act,  and  afford  an  approximate  index  to  the  char- 
acter of  themselves  and  the  society  in  which  they  live. 
The  positions  they  assume  having  been  taken  up  first,  the 
reasons  for  maintaining  them  are  discovered  afterwards : 
and  it  is  surprising  to  observe  the  confidence  with  which 
questions  of  morals  are  discussed,  as  if  on  grounds  of  abso- 
lute philosophy,  when  every  quiet  observer  perceives  that 
the  alleged  premises  would  appear  ridiculous  except  to 
persons  already  possessed  of  the  conclusion.  There  is  a 
test,  —  imperfect  I  admit,  —  by  which  to  judge  whether 
this  is  so  or  not,  and  to  disenchant  the  imagination  of  the 
mere  effect  of  usage.  Any  moral  practice  which  admits  of 
genuine  defence,  and  has  a  permanent  foundation  in  nature 
as  well  as  in  custom,  might  surely  be  recommended  to  an 
intelligent  community  hitherto  ignorant  of  it,  and  success- 
fully urged  upon  their  deliberate  adoption.  Yet  how  many 
things  are  we  accustomed  to  palliate  or  uphold,  which  we 
should  be  ashamed  to  submit  to  this  criterion,  and  which 
the  very  act  of  expounding  to  child  or  stranger  would  suf- 
ficiently condemn !  In  how  many  societies  are  the  mis- 
named laws  of  honor,  for  example,  still  justified,  as  if  they 
satisfactorily  met  the  conditions  of  a  problem  else  insoluble ! 
But  if  they  be  so  sound  and  useful,  it  would  be  safe  to  try 


THE   UNCLOUDED   HEART.  295 

the  argument  in  their  behalf  on  those  to  whom  the  whole 
system  of  ideas  is  entirely  new ;  to  preach  the  admirable 
wisdom  of  the  duel  to  some  tribe  having  only  such  civiliza- 
tion as  may  be  attained  without  it ;  and  proselytize  to  it  as 
if  it  were  an  a  priori  invention  of  philosophy.  If  the  apos- 
tles of  the  world's  law  feel  that  in  a  mental  clime  so  new, 
they  would  plead  in  vain,  should  they  not  suspect  that  they 
may  be  talking  absurdities  at  home,  which  have  no  force 
but  in  the  social  prepossessions  in  their  behalf?  It  is  fearful 
to  reflect  indeed  to  what  an  extent  our  native  moral  senti- 
ments are  modified  by  the  atmosphere  of  social  influence 
perpetually  spread  around  us ;  how  the  indications  of  the 
unperverted  conscience  may  become  obscured  and  lost,  and 
a  fatal  blindness  and  sleep  disqualify  it  for  its  waking  ofiice. 
It  is  the  natural  mistake  of  just  minds  to  believe  it  vigilant 
and  incorruptible  as  God.  When  we  fix  our  gaze  on  some 
dread  crime ;  when  we  see,  it  may  be,  the  outrages  of  a  ty- 
rant's profligacy  and  vengeance,  crushing  the  life  of  resolute 
purity,  or  consigning  to  the  dungeon  the  virtue  which  it 
fears;  —  under  the  impulse  of  poetic  justice,  we  imagine 
the  perpetrator  secretly  agonized  by  the  consciousness  of 
guilt ;  writhing  at  midnight  beneath  the  lash  of  a  fiery  re- 
morse, while  his  chained  victim  sleeps  the  light  slumbers 
of  innocence,  and  wakes  with  a  brow  cooled  by  the  peace 
within.  But  we  impose  upon  ourselves  by  a  natural  illusion : 
we  conceive  a  wretch  to  judge  himself  by  a  good  man's  con- 
science, and  to  view  his  own  deeds  in  a  light  which,  had  it 
been  accessible  to  him,  must  at  least  have  induced  a  hesita- 
tion about  their  commission.  No,  remorse  is  the  attribute, 
not  of  the  simply  guilty,  but  of  the  fallen:  it  is  the  bitter 
memory  which  sin,  yet  fresh,  retains  of  departed  goodness ; 
the  mind's  convulsive  grasp  on  the  retreating  purities  of 
the  past  : '  and,  however  vehemently  it  protests  against 
moral  deterioration^  the  consolidated  guilt  of  habit  it  lets 
alone.  Shall  any  one  then  assure  himself  that  all  is  right, 
because  he  is  clear  of  compunction  ?     Shall  he  suffer  his  in- 


296  THE   UNCLOUDED    HEART. 

dulgent  years  to  ebb  idly  away,  because  they  are  placid  as 
the  summer  wave  ?  Shall  he  thrust  aside  the  pleadings  of 
those  who  would  kindle  in  him  higher  thoughts  and  brace 
him  to  nobler  deeds,  —  by  saying  that  he  is  comfortable  and 
does  not  need  them?  If  so,  he  satisfies  himself  by  the 
same  argument  which  sophists  use  in  defence  of  slavery ; 
—  the  creatures  are  easy,  have  been  seen  to  laugh  merrily 
by  day,  and  are  known  to  sleep  well  at  night  !  As  if  it 
were  the  whole  life  of  man  to  have  a  sleek  skin  and  a 
drowsy  brain  !  As  if  any  existence  upon  ideas  were  not 
better  than  any  without  them ;  and  to  perceive  one's 
misery  were  not  the  best  consolation  for  its  infliction  ; 
and  to  aspire  to  a  nobler  existence,  though  with  faint- 
est hope,  to  chafe  against  the  chain  that  binds  us,  though 
it  gnaws  our  flesh,  were  not  preferable  to  that  most  ab- 
ject condition  of  humanity  in  which  conscious  degrada- 
tion becomes  impossible.  We  should  beware  then  how 
we  rely  on  this  unconsciousness  as  a  security.  Of  every 
low  state  of  character  this  apathy  towards  all  that  is  above 
it  is  the  worst  symptom.  This  torpor  should  not  lull, 
but  rather  terrify.  When  this  motionless  repose  reigns 
within,  —  this  breathless  atmosphere  of  the  heart,  —  the 
freshness  of  health  is  no  longer  there  :  it  is  the  pestilent 
dreariness  of  the  waste ;  the  awful  silence  of  moral  death. 

In  its  judgment  of  human  character,  more  even  than  in 
matters  of  personal  morals,  a  mind  under  the  governance  of 
pure  and  disinterested  affections  will  evince  the  clearest 
insight.  He  would  be  the  most  impartial  spectator  of  the 
great  theatre  of  human  life,  who  should  be  raised  into  a 
sphere  of  pure  contemplation  above  its  scenes ;  to  a  position 
beyond  its  competitions,  its  disappointments,  its  rewards ; 
where  the  voice  of  its  restless  multitudes  floated  but  in 
whispers,  articulate  enough  to  report  its  passions  with  pre- 
cision, but  not  thrilling  enough  to  agitate  the  spirit  by  their 
power.  Such  an  observer,  himself  acted  on  by  no  sympa- 
thies but  those  of   conscience,  —  perfectly  perceptive,  but 


THE   UNCLOUDED   HEART.  297 

entirely  passionless,  —  would  behold  us  in  true  relations  and 
proportions.  The  pure  affections  create  a  mental  position 
somewhat  similar  to  this.  They  still  the  confusion  of  the 
senses.  They  remove  all  motive  for  not  seeing  men  and  life 
exactly  as  they  are.  One  who  looks  on  the  world  as  his 
appointed  post  of  strenuous  duty,  and  feels  on  him  the 
divine  charge  to  leave  it  better  than  he  found  it,  must  close 
neither  eye  nor  heart  against  any  of  its  ills.  And  as  for  its 
good, —  for  the  charities  that  bless,  the  virtues  that  ennoble, 
the  genius  that  illuminates  our  human  lot,  —  delighting  in 
them  all,  he  discerns  them  all :  bringing  to  him  as  they  do 
the  refreshment  of  a  generous  veneration,  what  temptation 
has  he  to  doubt,  decry,  and  disbelieve  them  ?  In  a  mind 
where  any  selfish  end  habitually  prevails,  men  are  regarded 
as  tools :  their  services  are  wanted,  and  their  complacency 
must  be  secured :  they  are  looked  upon  as  objects  of  man- 
agement, on  whom  the  arts  of  influence  must  be  tried. 
Hence  the  mental  eye  is  insensibly  trained  to  a  sly  and  cir- 
cumventing gaze  upon  our  fellows  :  the  hand  of  cautious 
power  steals  forth,  and  makes  a  lever  of  their  weaknesses  : 
the  tongue,  encouraged  by  its  first  experiments  of  delicate 
insincerity,  grows  rash  and  voluble  in  flattery.  And  those 
whom  a  man  is  conscious  of  praising  too  much,  he  is  sure  to 
value  too  little.  Accustomed  to  speak  of  good  qualities 
which  they  do  not  possess,  to  invent  merits  of  which  they 
are  empty,  his  mind  is  always  dwelling  on  the  negation  of 
excellence,  and  growing  familiar  with  it  exclusively  as  an 
object  of  fiction  ;  till  at  length  he  ceases  to  believe  in  its 
reality,  and  attributes  to  every  thing  human  the  hollowness 
which  he  practises  himself.  By  the  interposition  of  his  own 
selfishness,  the  nobler  half  of  human  nature  undergoes  total 
and  permanent  eclipse.  How  should  it  be  otherwise  ?  For 
who  would  spread  the  tender  colors  of  the  soul  before  an 
eye  like  his,  where  they  can  bask  in  no  light  of  love  ?  Who 
would  lay  the  head  to  rest  on  a  bosom  cold  as  marble?  Will 
any  make  confession  of  an  unworldly  aspiration  to  one,  who 


298  THE  UNCLOUDED  HEART. 

keeps  always  ready  some  vile  interpretation  of  whatever 
seems  most  excellent ;  who  sees  in  the  pious  only  traders  in 
hypocrisy,  in  the  patriot  a  speculator  in  power,  in  the  martyr 
a  candidate  for  praise  ?  All  that  is  beautiful  shrinks  from 
the  presence  of  one  who  delights  to  soil  it  with  instant  dust. 
Oh  how  unblest  are  they  who  have  fallen  into  an  incapacity 
to  admire,  and  bid  adieu  to  the  solace  of  a  deep  reverence ; 
who  can  take  up  without  awe  the  leaves  scattered  on  the 
earth  by  departed  genius,  or  read  of  the  struggles  of  liberty 
without  enthusiasm,  or  follow  the  good  in  their  pilgrimage 
of  mercy  without  the  heavings  of  a  mighty  joy  !  No  grief 
deserves  such  pity  as  the  hopeless  privations  of  a  scornful 
heart. 

Those  who  seek  only  their  "  own  will "  lose,  then,  by 
natural  process,  the  faculty  of  judging  justly  respecting 
human  character.  They  are  liable  to  fall  into  no  less  mis- 
take in  their  anticipations  of  those  changes  in  society  which 
are  brought  about  by  the  nobler  forces  of  the  human  will. 
It  is  happy  for  the  world,  that  over  the  vision  of  its  greatest 
enemies  their  own  selfishness  spreads  a  film,  concealing  from 
them,  as  in  judicial  blindness,  the  generous  powers  which 
will  effect  their  overthrow.  Tyrants  and  self-seeking  rulers 
are,  by  nature,  Machiavelian  moralists ;  they  have  no  faith 
but  in  the  most  vulgar  incentives  to  action,  and  are  familiar 
with  no  engines  of  influence  but  force  and  corruption.  Ac- 
customed to  rely  on  these,  they  know  not  that  there  are 
emergencies,  in  which  even  a  herd  of  slaves  may  be  inspired 
with  an  enthusiasm  that  makes  such  implements  of  no  avail; 
—  when  high  sentiments  of  social  justice,  or  aspirations 
towards  an  invisible  God,  vibrate  through  the  dull  clay  of 
ordinary  men.  Thus,  often  has  the  pampered  despot  been 
blinded  to  his  fate,  and  led  unconscious  on,  like  a  decorated 
and  sportive  victim,  to  the  sacrificial  altar  of  a  people's 
indignation.  In  spite  of  all  his  vigilance,  conspiracy,  eon- 
ducted  by  lean  and  praying  patriots,  has  gone  on  unnoticed 
beneath  his  very  eyes.     While  the  sunshine  smiles  upon  his 


THE   UNCLOUDED   HEART.  299 

palace,  and  glances  from  the  swords  of  faithful  troops,  he 
despises  the  gathering  clouds  of  a  nation's  frown  :  till  sud- 
denly the  tempest  bursts  upon  the  hills,  and  the  heavy 
tramp,  as  of  the  men  of  toil,  thunders  on  the  ground ;  and, 
after  a  flash  of  vented  wrath,  the  veterans  and  their  leader 
lie  low  upon  the  field,  and  the  thanksgiving  of  the  free  goes 
up  into  a  sky  serene.  Thus  it  is  of  the  very  nature  of  guilty 
power  to  be  surprised  by  the  apparition  of  high-minded 
virtue  in  a  people.  And  though  the  resistance  it  offers  to 
the  demands  of  conscience  may,  on  this  very  account,  be 
the  more  exasperated,  and  the  vindication  of  an  abstract 
right,  like  that  of  free  worship,  may  cost  a  country  the 
life  of  her  best  sons,  we  may  yet  be  permitted  to  rejoice 
at  the  infatuation  of  selfish  rule  :  for  even  the  sanguinary 
triumph  of  a  great  ajid  righteous  principle  is  often  better 
than  the  sly  and  bloodless  ascendancy  of  a  bad  one.  War, 
with  all  its  horrors,  may  be  half  forgotten  in  two  genera- 
tions :  but  the  rights  which  it  may  establish  may  prove  the 
causes  of  perennial  peace.  Men,  at  the  best,  must  die  as 
the  grass;  but  the  principles  of  justice  are  blessings  for 
evermore. 

The  selfish,  then,  in  perpetually  seeking  their  own  will, 
and  contemplating  mankind  chiefly  as  possible  instruments 
for  its  accomplishment,  necessarily  overlook  the  best  ele- 
ments of  our  nature,  and  form  judgments  that  are  not  just 
of  human  character,  and  its  collective  effects  on  the  condi- 
tion of  the  world.  Moreover,  while  selfishness  makes  some 
men  tools,  it  finds  in  others  rivals ;  and,  under  the  form  of 
jealousy,  draws  another  cloud  over  the  judgment,  and  hides 
from  it  all  that  is  fairest  in  kindred  minds.  He  that  cannot 
enjoy,  with  genuine  exultation,  the  reputation  of  another, 
and  admire  with  tranquil  spirit  the  excellence  that  borders 
on  his  own,  loses  the  best  joy  of  a  good  heart.  To  the  very 
merits  which,  from  being  most  akin  to  his  own,  he  is  most 
fitted  to  appreciate,  he  becomes  insensible  :  and  a  bitter 
poison  drops  into  the  fountains  of  his  most  generous  peace. 


300  THE    UNCLOUDED    HEART. 

There  is  no  more  melancholy  sight  than  that  of  a  mind, 
otherwise  great,  succumbing  beneath  a  mean  and  fretful 
passion  like  this ;  indulging  in  petty  cavils  at  worth,  before 
which  he  should  lead  on  the  multitude  to  bend  the  knee ; 
8o  visibly  greedy  of  others'  praise,  that  the  most  vulgar 
observer  laughs  to  think  that  the  great  man  is  just  like  him- 
self. It  was  a  grief,  like  an  absolute  bereavement,  to  find 
that  our  own  Newton,  who  should  have  lifted  a  brow  as 
pure  and  smooth  as  the  heavens  he  interpreted,  and  have 
greeted  all  that  was  good  beneath  them  with  a  smile  of 
godlike  benediction,  could  tease  a  brother  laborer,  like 
Flamstead,  and  shrivel  up  his  temper  into  peevishness,  and 
be  driven  hither  and  thither  by  trivial  suspicions,  like  a 
blind  giant  led  about  by  a  little  child.  Let  us  hope,  what 
indeed  there  is  some  reason  to  belieye,  that  all  this  was 
rather  the  tremulousness  of  shattered  nerves,  than  the  per-, 
turbations  of  the  native  mind.  Yet  is  it  sad  to  have  even 
to  mnke  excuse  for  such  as  he. 

Our  judgments  of  human  character  and  relations  will, not 
be  right,  unless  our  sympathies  be  not  disinterested  only 
but  pure.  The  moral  feelings  must  transcend  the  social ; 
the  sense  of  duty  be  stronger  than  the  instincts  of  affection. 
In  addition  to  the  negative  qualification  of  not  seeking  our 
own  will,  we  must  have  the  positive  one  of  seeking  the  will 
of  the  Father  who  is  in  heaven.  The  partialities  of  the 
affections  are  nobler  every  way  than  those  of  self-love  :  but 
they  are  partialities  still ;  and  while  they  make  our  judg- 
ments merciful,  may  prevent  their  being  just.  They  may- 
bewilder  our  moral  perceptions,  and,  in  pure  tenderness  for 
the  guilty,  seduce  us  to  think  lightly  of  the  guilt.  There 
are  in  life  few  temptations  so  severe  as  those  which  our 
human  love  may  thus  offer  to  our  conscience.  If,  for  ex- 
ample, children  around  a  mother's  knee  betray  their  first 
unanswerable  suspicion  of  their  father's  vices,  and  urge 
her  with  wondering  questions,  which  she  has  long  dreaded 
to  hear,  that  press  hard  upon  his  guilt;  what  is  she  to  do? 


THE   UNCLOUDED   HEART.  301 

Is  she  to  hide  the  anguish  that  trembles  on  her  features, 
and,  in-  fidelity  to  him,  be,  for  the  first  time,  untrue  to 
them  ?  Is  she  to  say  the  evil  thing  of  him  for  whom  she 
lives,  and  make  him  as  a  byword  and  a  warning  on  his 
children's  lips  ?  And  yet,  is  she  to  take  it  on  herself  to 
soil  the  purity  and  simplicity  of  their  moral  perceptions, 
and  blow,  with  the  foul  breath  of  falsehood,  on  the  lamp 
of  God  within  their  hearts?  Her  first  duty  is,  doubtless, 
to  the  sanctities  of  their  young  minds ;  but  so  hard  a  lot 
forces  us  to  think  how  dreadful  is  the  guilt  that  makes  a 
contradiction  between  the  sympathies  of  virtue  and  of 
home,  and  turns  into  a  sin  the  natural  mercy  of  disinter- 
ested love. 

Whatever  then  be  the  ofiice  required  of  the  judgment; 
whether  to  seek  truth  along  difficult  ways,  or,  amid  the 
sophistries  of  custom,  to  interpret  our  own  responsibilities ; 
whether  it  is  invited  to  the  generous  appreciation  of  excel- 
lence, or  summoned  to  the  stern  duties  of  disapprobation 
and  rebuke ;  he  only  who  can  abandon  his  own  will,  and 
seek  that  of  the  Father  in  heaven,  will  either  discern  his 
position  clearly,  or  discharge  its  obligations  with  simplicity 
and  courage.  Nor  will  this  clearness  of  view  and  direct- 
ness of  aim  be  likely  to  desert  him  in  the  greater  emergen- 
cies of  life.  Then  it  is  that  meaner  principles  of  action,  all 
mere  personal  desires,  collapse  in  weakness  and  bewilder- 
ment. In  times  of  danger,  where  it  is  needful  to  risk  some- 
thing or  lose  every  thing,  men,  possessed  of  no  higher 
inspiration,  lose  their  presence  of  mind  :  and  while  they 
stand  in  timid  calculation,  the  One  only  moment  of  faithful 
duty  slips  away.  They  will  profess  perhaps  to  have  been 
overpowered  by  the  sense  of  their  responsibility  ;  —  an  un- 
conscious acknowledgment  of  the  confusion  into  which  all 
self-regarding  feelings  throw  the  mind ;  —  for  no  man,  truly 
earnest  about  an  ohject,  critically  pauses  or  turns  aside  to 
examine  how  he  is  acquitting  himself.  No  !  great  as  are  the 
achievements  of  inferior  principles  of  action,  —  the  love  of 


302  THE   UNCLOUDED   HEART. 

power,  the  pursuit  of  glory,  —  the  only  heroism,  fitted  for 
the  last  extremity  of  circumstance,  is  that  of  disinterested 
duty.  Others  may  skilfully  and  firmly  use  up  their  outward 
resources  to  the  last :  but  the  Christian  hero,  when  all  these 
are  gone,  has  yet  to  spend  himself » 


XXX. 

"HELP  THOU  MINE  UNBELIEF." 


Mark  ix.  24. 
IX)RD,  I  believe;  help  thou  mine  unbelief. 

That  this  is  an  age  most  sensitive  as  to  its  belief,  is  evident 
on  the  slightest  inspection  of  its  moral  physiognomy.  A 
profound  curiosity  is  awakened  respecting  the  foundations 
of  faith,  and  the  proper  treatment  of  those  high  problems 
which  religion  undertakes  to  solve.  An  unexampled  pro- 
portion of  our  new  literature  is  theological;  of  our  new 
buildings,  ecclesiastical ;  of  our  current  conversation,  on  the 
condition  and  prospects  of  sects.  The  social  movements 
which  are  watched  with  the  most  anxiety  on  the  one  hand, 
and  hope  on  the  other,  are  recent  organizations  of  religious 
sympathy  and  opinion.  Even  the  interests  of  industry  and 
commerce  find,  for  the  moment,  rival  attractions  to  dispute 
their  omnipotence ;  and  the  church  is  almost  a  balance  for 
the  exchange.  -A  converted  clergyman  is  as  interesting  as 
an  apostate  statesman ;  a  visit  to  Rome,  as  a  mission  to 
Washington ;  a  heresy  from  Germany,  as  a  protocol  from 
Paris ;  and  a  new  baptism  is  no  less  the  theme  of  talk  than 
a  new  tariff.  If  theological  gossip  were  the  measure  of 
religious  faith,  we  should  be  the  devoutest  of  all  human 
generations. 

Yet  with  all  this  currency  of  holy  words,  rarely,  I  believe, 
has  there  been  a  scantier  exchange  of  holy  thought.  We 
do  not  meet,  eye  to  eye  and  heart  to  heart,  and  say,  with 
bosomed   breath,  "Lo,   God  is  here!"     But,  rather,  with 


304  HELP   THOU    MINE   UNBELIEF. 

quick  observant  glance,  and  loud  harsh  voice,  we  notice  the 
postures  of  others,  and  discuss  the  things  they  say ;  and  go 
round  like  a  patrol  to  look  in  upon  the  world  at  prayers. 
The  talk  is  all  critical^  about  the  length  or  shortness  of  some 
one's  creed,  the  warmth  or  coldness  of  a  people's  worship. 
It  tells  you  what  each  church  thinks  of  all  of  its  neighbors, 
and  repeats  to  you  the  image  of  Christendom  in  every  phase. 
But,  flitting  from  image  to  image,  we  nowhere  alight  upon 
the  reality.  We  stand  in  one  another's  presence,  like  so 
many  mirrors  ranged  round  empty  space :  turning  to  each, 
you  see  only  a  distorted  grouping  of  all  the  rest ;  which 
being  gone,  it  would  be  evident  at  once,  that  that  polished 
face  could  show  merely  vacancy  without  a  trace  of  God. 
Of  old,  when  the  saints  and  prophets  lived  whose  names 
we  take  in  vain,  the  language  of  religion  was  itself  the  very 
incense  that  rose  from  burning,  fragrant  souls  to  heaven : 
now,  it  does  but  analyze  the  smoke,  and  explain  of  what 
chemistry  it  comes.  Christ  "  came  to  bring  fire  upon  earth  ; " 
and  his  disciples,  after  eighteen  centuries,  are  discussing  the 
best  patent  match  to  get  it  kindled  I 

There  is  one  feature  in  the  professions  of  the  present 
times,  as  compared  with  past,  on  which  it  is  impossible  to 
reflect  without  astonishment.  There  is  everywhere  the 
sharpest  discernment  of  unbelief  in  others,  with  an  entire 
freedom  from  it  in  one's  self.  The  critic,  if  you  will  only 
go  round  with  him,  can  show  you  how  it  is  lurking  here  and 
there.  He  keeps  a  list  of  all  that  his  neighbors  do  7iot 
believe.  Through  the  powerful  glass  of  his  suspicions  he 
can  make  you  aware  of  the  nicest  shades  of  heresy :  and 
from  writers  who  open  new  veins  of  thought,  can  pick  out 
passages  so  dreadful  as  to  constitute  a  kind  of  infidel  an- 
thology. From  whatever  class  you  choose  your  guide,  this 
is  what  he  will  point  out  to  you.  Yet  if  you  turn  round 
and  say,  "  And  now,  good  friend,  what  of  thine  own  faith  ?" 
you  will  be  delighted  to  find  that  it  has  altogether  escaped 
the  universal  malady  :  it  has  never  had  a  shake  ;  or,  if  ever 


HELP   THOU  MINE   UNBELIEF.  305 

ailing,  has  long  got  up  its  good  looks,  and  remains  quite 
sound  and  firm.  Trust,  in  short,  the  churches'  report  of 
one  another,  and  godlessness  is  universal ;  trust  their  ac- 
count of  themselves,  and  scepticism  is  extinct.  Nobody- 
hesitates  about  any  thing  which  it  is  respectable  to  hold ; 
and  the  clearest  atmosphere  of  certainty  overarches  every 
life,  and  opens  a  heaven  undarkened  by  a  doubt.  And  who 
are  these  men,  before  whom  the  universe  is  so  transparent ; 
for  whom  the  veil  of  mystery  is  all  withdrawn,  or  at  least 
hides  no  awful  possibilities  ?  who  are  always  ready  to  say 
the  proud  words,  "  Lord,  I  believe !  "  but  would  look  askance 
at  the  brother  who  should  meekly  respond,  "  Help  thou  mine 
unbelief!"  —  Smooth,  easy  men,  with  broad  acres  in  the 
country,  or  heavy  tonnage  on  the  sea ;  with  good  standing 
in  their  profession,  or  good  custom  at  their  shop  ;  living  a 
life  so  rounded  with  comfort,  and  showing  a  mind  so  content 
to  repose  on  it,  that,  while  rents  and  freights  keep  up,  you 
cannot  fancy  they  would  much  feel  the  loss  of  God  :  and 
to  part  with  the  reversion  of  heaven  would  hardly  affect 
them  like  the  news  of  a  large  bad  debt.  They  believe 
soundly,  in  the  same  way  that  they  dress  neatly  :  it  no  more 
occurs  to  them  to  question  their  habitual  creed,  than  to  think 
in  the  morning  whether  they  shall  put  on  a  toga  or  a  coat : 
it  is  a  matter  of  course,  that  the  proprieties  be  observed, 
and  things  that  are  settled  for  us  be  left  untouched.  Be- 
sides, what  could  be  done  with  the  "  common  people,"  if  it 
were  not  for  God  ? 

Now  from  this  easy  faith,  sitting  so  light  upon  our  mod- 
ern men,  I  turn  to  the  old  Puritan,  and  am  startled  by  the 
contrast.  However  much  you  may  dislike  his  uncouth  looks, 
and  be  offended  with  his  whining  voice,  he  is  not  a  man 
without  religion  ;  —  a  pity,  it  may  be,  that  he  has  taken  the 
holiness  and  left  the  beauty  of  it.  Missing  it,  however,  in 
his  person  and  his  speech,  you  find  it  penetrating  his  life, 
and  shaping  it  to  high  ends  of  truth  and  right.  He  can  act 
and  suffer  for  God's  sake ;  can  stand  loose  from  the  delu- 

20 


306  HELP   THOU   MINE   UNBELIEF. 

sions  of  property,  —  say  that  nothing  is  his  own,  —  and 
occupy  his  place  as  a  fiduciary  fief  from  the  Lord  Paramount 
of  all ;  can  despise  gaudy  iniquity  and  see  to  the  heart  of 
every  gilded  flattery  ;  —  can  insist  on  veracity  in  the  coun- 
cil, and  simplicity  in  the  church;  —  feel  the  Omniscient  eye 
on  his  State-paper  as  he  writes  ;  and  the  Eternal  Spirit 
directing  the  course  his  persecuted  step  shall  take.  Yet 
look  into  this  man's  diary,  and  stand  by  and  overhear  his 
prayers.  He  loudly  bewails  his  unbelief;  —  confesses  a 
heart  chilled  with  the  very  shadow  of  death;  —  complains 
that  the  Most  High  has  hid  his  face  from  him ;  and  with 
tears  and  protestations  calls  on  the  spirit  of  Christ  to  exor- 
cise the  demons  of  doubt  that  are  grappling  with  his  soul. 
Surely  this  is  a  strange  thing.  Here  is  a  man  plainly  living 
for  sublime  ends,  beyond  the  baubles  of  this  world  ;  a  man, 
who  has  got  fear  and  pain  beneath  his  feet;  —  who  wel- 
comes self-denial  as  an  angel  of  the  way,  and  watches  every 
indulgence  as  a  traitor  offering  the  kiss ;  —  to  whom  the 
purest  human  love  appears  a  snare  tempting  him  to  linger 
here;  —  who  walks  the  earth,  as  in  the  outer  fringe  of  the 
beatific  vision  :  and  his  cry  is,  "  Help  thou  mine  unbelief ! " 
And  here  are  we,  strangers  to  wrestlings  such  as  his  ;  who 
sleep  soundly  by  nights,  and  manage  prosperously  by  day  ; 
whose  grand  care  is  to  get  a  living,  rather  than  to  live,  and 
to  cure  by  rule  the  health  impaired  by  luxury: — we,  to 
whom  the  earth  answers  well  enough  as. a  kitchen,  a  parlor, 
an  ofiice,  or  a  theatre,  but  hardly  as  a  watch-tower  of  con- 
templation, or  a  holy  of  holies  for  the  oracles  of  God  :  — we 
can  stand  up,  and  have  the  assurance  to  say,  "  Lord !  we 
believe ! " 

The  difference  between  these  two  states  of  mind  does  not 
require  that  we  should  charge  either  of  them  with  hypoc- 
risy. There  is  truth  in  the  professions  of  them  both ;  truth 
enough  to  vindicate  their  veracity,  though  not  to  equalize 
their  worth.  The  unbeliever  in  the  one  case  and  the  be- 
liever in  the  other  are  measured  off  from  a  different  scale ; 


HELP   THOU   MINE   UNBELIEF.  307 

our  fathers  looking  up  to  the  faith  they  ought  to  gain,  their 
children  looking  down  to  the  faith  they  have  yet  to  lose. 
The  former  had  so  lofty  a  standard,  that  every  thought 
beneath  the  summit-level  was  reckoned  to  their  shame :  the 
latter  have  so  low  a  standard,  that  all  above  the  dead  level 
at  the  base  of  life  is  counted  to  their  praise.  Nor  is  this  at 
all  inconceivable,  even  though  we  were  to  reduce  all  relig- 
ion to  a  single  article  of  faith.  To  me,  I  confess,  it  seems 
a  very  considerable  thing,  just  to  believe  in  God;  —  difficult 
indeed  to  avoid  honestly,  but  not  easy  to  accomplish  wor- 
thily, and  impossible  to  compass  perfectly :  —  a  thing,  not 
lightly  to  be  professed,  but  rather  humbly  to  be  sought ; 
not  to  be  found  at  the  end  of  any  syllogism,  but  in  the  in- 
most fountains  of  purity  and  affection;  —  not  the  sudden 
gift  of  intellect,  but  to  be  earned  by  a  loving  and  brave  life. 
It  is  indeed  the  greatest  thing  allowed  to  mankind,  —  the 
germ  of  every  lesser  greatness:  and  he  who  can  say,  "I 
have  faith  in  the  Almighty,"  makes  a  higher  boast  than  if 
he  could  declare,  "  The  Mediterranean  is  in  my  garden,  and 
mine  is  every  branch  that  waves  upon  its  shores,  from  the 
cedars  of  Lebanon  to  the  pine  upon  the  Alps."  How  often, 
in  the  stifling  heat  and  press  of  life,  when  trivial  cares  rise 
with  dry  and  dusty  cloud  to  shut  us  in,  do  we  wholly  lose 
our  place  in  the  great  calm  of  God,  and  fret  as  if  there  were 
no  Infinite  Reason  embracing  the  vortex  of  the  world !  In 
loneliness  and  exhaustion,  when  the  spirits  are  weak,  and 
the  crush  of  circumstance  is  strong ;  —  when  comrades  rest 
and  sleep,  and  we  must  toil  and  watch  ;  —  when  the  love  of 
friends  grows  cold,  and  the  warm  light  of  youth  is  quenched, 
and  the  promises  of  years  seem  broken,  and  hope  has  but 
one  chapter  more  ;  —  how  little  do  we  think,  as  the  boughs 
drip  sadly  with  all  this  night-rain,  that  we  lodge  in  Eden 
still,  where  the  voice  of  the  Lord  God  rustles  in  the  trees, 
and  bespeaks  the  blossom  and  the  fruit  that  can  only  spring 
from  tears !  Fear  too,  in  every  form  except  the  fear  of  sin, 
is  a  genuine  atheism.    The  very  child,  knows  that :  for  if  a 


308  HELP   THOU   MINE   UNBELIEF. 

terror  comes  on  him  because  he  is  in  the  field  alone  by  night, 
he  chides  himself  for  his  false  heart ;  stops  and  looks  tran- 
quilly round  ;  relaxes  the  rigid  limbs,  and  lets  go  the  stifled 
breath  ;  putting  forth  a  thought  into  the  Great  Presence, 
and  drawing  a  holy  quiet  from  th'fe  stars.  And  through  all 
manhood's  fears,  no  one  loses  his  presence  of  mind,  who  has 
not  lost  the  presence  of  his  God.  In  the  battle-field,  where 
justice  sometimes  makes  appeal  to  the  Lord  of  Hosts  :  in 
the  shipwreck,  where  death  seizes  the  storm  as  his  trumpet, 
and,  with  the  lightning  as  his  banner,  comes  streaming  down 
the  sky :  in  courts  of  sacerdotal  inquisition,  where  the 
branding-iron  is  hot,  and  instruments  of  torture  tempt  the 
lie  :  in  the  careless  world,  where  prosperity  is  worshipped, 
and  nice  scruples  are  laughed  down  :  in  the  sleepy  church, 
which  can  wink  at  oppression,  and  give  comfort  to  unright- 
eous Mammon,  and  cover  with  obloquy  the  heroes  of  God's 
truth  :  —  no  man  could  sink  into  an  unworthy  thing,  did  he 
keep  within  his  everlasting  fortress,  instead  of  rushing  un- 
sheltered into  the  wild. 

There  is  then  every  gradation  even  of  this  simple  faith, 
spreading  over  a  range  quite  indefinite.  Only  by  a  refer- 
ence to  its  two  extremes  can  we  descnbe  the  position  of 
each  mind  and  of  each  age.  Complete  belief  is  attained, 
when  God  is  realized  as  much  in  the  present  as  in  the  past. 
Complete  unbelief  when  God  is  excluded  from  the  past  as 
much  as  from  the  present.  Measuring  from  this  lowest 
limit,  we  are  certainly  in  a  state  of  imperfect  atheism.  We 
do  not  negative  as  yet  the  sanctities  of  old :  we  only  deny 
the  inspirations  of  to-day.  We  recognize  certain  ages  of 
the  bygone  world,  as  the  real  centres  of  divine  activity,  — 
the  sole  witnesses  of  creation  and  of  miracle,  the  happy 
points  where  heaven  vouchsafed  to  commune  with  the 
earth.  They  lie  in  our  imagination,  like  brilliant  islands 
rising  distant  in  the  seas  of  time ;  vainly  dashed  by  the 
dark  waters  of  human  history  ;  and  lighted  by  a  glory- 
column  from  above,  piercing  the  leaden  heavens  that  else- 


HELP   THOU    MINE   UNBELIEF.  *  309 

where  overhang  the  waste.  There,  in  old  Palestine,  we 
think,  the  august  voice  broke  for  a  moment  its  eternal  si- 
lence. There,  upon  the  mountains,  was  a  murmur  more 
than  of  the  wind  ;  and  in  the  air  a  thunder  grown  articu- 
late ;  and  on  the  grass  a  dew  of  fresher  beauty  ;  and  in  the 
lakes  a  docile  listening  look,  as  if  conscious  of  a  Presence 
higher  than  the  night's.  In  this  retrospect,  it  will  not  be 
denied,  lies  the  ground  of  our  prevalent  religion  :  it  con- 
tains the  strength  of  our  case:  our  assurance  of  divine  things 
refers  pre-eminently  thither,  and  scarcely  at  all  to  any  more 
recent  age.  "  The  men  in  those  days "  (we  virtually  say) 
*'had  the  best  reasons  for  believing  and  recognizing  God. 
Had  we  too  been  there,  we  should  have  known  for  our- 
selves, and  have  shared  the  great  fear  and  faith  that  fell  on 
all.  But  as  we  are  placed  afar  off  and  have  the  sacredness 
at  second  hand,  we  must  take  their  reasons  upon  trust,  hav- 
ing none  that  are  worth  much  of  our  own."  Our  faith,  there- 
fore, is  not  personal,  but  testimonial :  it  is  an  hypothesis,  a 
tradition.  It  thinks  within  itself,  "  If  we  had  stood  where 
Moses  was,  and  travelled  at  the  right  hand  of  Paul,  we 
should  have  felt  as  they."  And  this  justification  of  their 
ancient  state  of  mind  makes  the  substance  of  our  belief  to- 
day. And  with  like  view  do  we  turn  our  gaze  upon  the 
future.  That  also  spreads  before  us  radiant  with  a  light  di- 
vine. There  we  shall  find  better  reasons  for  our  faith  tlian 
meet  us  here ;  an  audience-hall  of  the  Most  High  where  his 
spirit  may  be  felt ;  a  clear  touch  of  his  living  presence, 
glowing  through  our  thought  with  conscious  truth,  and 
spreading  through  our  hearts  a  saintly  love,  denied  us  in 
this  court  of  exile.  And  so  it  happens,  that  ages  gone,  and 
ages  coming,  absorb  from  us  the  whole  reality  of  God,  and 
leave  the  life  on  which  we  stand  an  atheistic  death.  The 
heaven  that  spans  us  touches  the  earth  on  the  right  hand 
and  the  left,  at  an  horizon  we  cannot  reach,  but  keeps  its 
infinite  zenith-distance  overhead.  We  believe  in  One  who 
looks  at  us,  but  not  in  One  who  lives  with  us.     We  are  in 


310  HELP   THOU   MINE   UNBELIEF. 

the  house  he  built ;  but  we  work  m  it  ulone,  for  he  is  gone 
up  among  the  hills,  and  will  only  come  to  fetch  us  by-and- 
by.  And  it  is  no  wonder  that,  in  a  banishment  like  this, 
our  w^orship  loses  its  immediate  reality,  and  prays  no  more 
with  a  fresh  strong  heart.  It  is  not  bathed  in  the  flowing 
tides  of  Deity,  but  keeps  dry  upon  the  strand  from  which 
he  has  ebbed  away.  If  ever  it  says,  "  Lo,  God  is  here  !  "  it 
instantly  belies  itself,  by  drawing  out  the  telescope  of  his- 
tory to  look  for  him.  It  is  not  a  communion  face  to  face, 
wherein  he  is  near  to  us  as  the  light  upon  our  eye  or  the 
sorrow  on  our  hearts.  It  has  become  a  coinmemoration, 
telling  what  once  he  was  to  happier  spirits  of  our  race, 
and  how  grateful  we  are  for  the  dear  old  messages  that 
faintly  reach  our  ear,  how  we  will  cherish  the  last  remnant 
of  that  precious  and  only  sure  memorial,  —  the  fragile  and 
consecrated  link  between  his  sphere  and  ours.  Thus  our 
worship  is  a  monument  of  absent  realities,  and  serves  at 
best  but  to  keep  alive,  like  an  anniversary,  the  remem- 
brance of  things  else  fading  in  the  distance.  Or,  if  we 
direct  our  face  the  other  way,  and  look  towards  the  fu- 
ture, we  throw  our  prayers  still  farther  from  the  actual  du- 
ties at  our  feet.  We  plainly  say  that  there  can  be  no  true 
worship  here,  —  it  is  too  poor  and  dull  a  state :  —  we 
only  expect  it  hereafter,  and  would  bear  that  greater  pros- 
pect in  our  mind.  And  so  we  fall  into  the  insincerity  of 
coming  before  God  by  way  of  keeping  ourselves  in  practice, 
and  turning  our  religion  into  a  rehearsal.  What  wonder 
that,  amid  these  histrionic  affectations,  the  healthy  heart  of 
faith  gets  sicklier  till  it  dies  ? 

To  approach  again  to  the  theocratic  faith  of  our  fathers, 
we  must  leave  the  atmosphere  of  sacredness  upon  the  past 
and  the  future  ;  only  spread  its  margin  either  way,  till  it 
envelops  and  glorifies  the  present.  For  my  own  part,  I 
venerate  not  less  than  others  the  birth-hour  of  Christianity, 
and  the  creative  origin  of  worlds.  But  I  do  not  believe  that 
God  lived  then  and  there  alone;  or  that  if  we  could  be 


HELP  THOU  MINE   UNBELIEF.  311 

transplanted  to  those  times,  we  should  find  any  such  differ- 
ence as  would  melt  down  the  coldness  of  our  hearts,  or 
leave  us  more  without  excuse  than  we  are  now.  There  is 
no  chronology  in  the  evidence,  any  more  than  in  the  pres- 
ence, of  Deity.  Since  the  fathers  fell  asleep,  all  things 
continue  as  they  were  from  the  beginning,  —  or  rather  the 
-wnbeginning,  —  of  creation.  The  universe,  open  to  the  eye 
to-day,  looks  as  it  did  a  thousand  years  ago  :  and  the  morn- 
ing hymn  of  Milton  docs  but  tell  the  beauty  with  which  our 
own  familiar  sun  dressed  the  earliest  fields  and  gardens  of 
the  w^orld.  We  see  what  all  our  fathers  saw.  And  if  we 
cannot  find  God  in  your  house  and  mine,  upon  the  roadside 
or  the  margin  of  the  sea ;  in  the  bursting  seed  or  opening 
flower  ;  in  the  day-duty  and  the  night-musing  ;  in  the  genial 
laugh  and  the  secret  grief ;  in  the  procession  of  life,  ever 
entering  afresh,  and  solemnly  passing  by  and  dropping  off ; 
I  do  not  think  we  should  discern  him  any  more  on  the  grass 
of  Eden,  or  beneath  the  moonlight  of  Gethsemane.  De- 
pend upon  it,  it  is  not  the  want  of  greater  miracles,  but  of 
the  soul  to  perceive  such  as  are  allowed  us  still,  that  makes 
us  push  all  the  sanctities  into  the  far  spaces  we  cannot 
reach.  The  devout  feel  that  wherever  God's  hand  is,  there 
is  miracle  :  and  it  is  simply  an  indevoutness  which  imagines 
that  only  where  miracle  is,  can  there  be  the  real  hand  of 
God.  The  customs  of  heaven  ought  surely  to  be  more  sacred 
in  our  eyes  than  its  anomalies ;  the  dear  old  ways,  of  which 
the  Most  High  is  never  tired,  than  the  strange  things  which 
he  does  not  love  well  enough  ever  to  repeat.  And  he  who 
will  but  discern  beneath  the  sun,  as  he  rises  any  morning, 
the  supporting  finger  of  the  Almighty,  may  recover  the 
sweet  and  reverent  surprise  with  which  Adam  gazed  on 
the  first  dawn  in  Paradise.  It  is  no  outward  change,  no 
shifting  in  time  or  place,  but  only  the  loving  meditation 
of  the  pure  in  heart,  that  can  re-awaken  the  Eternal  from  the 
sleep  within  our  souls  ;  that  can  render  him  a  reality  again, 
and  vindicate  for  him  once  more  his  ancient  Name  of  "  Thb 
Living  God." 


XXXI. 

HAYING,  DOING,  AND  BEING. 


1  John  ii.  17. 

the  world  passeth  away,  and  the  lust  thereof;  but  he  that 
doeth  the  will  op  god  abideth  for  ever. 

Few  things  can  strike  a  thoughtful  man  with  greater  wonder, 
than  the  different  estimate  he  makes,  in  different  moods,  of 
the  same  portion  of  time.  To-day,  he  is  engaged  with  some 
speculation,  in  which  a  millennium  is  not  worth  reckoning : 
to-morrow,  he  is  brought  to  some  experience,  in  which  a 
minute  bears  the  burden  of  an  eternal  weight.  With  the 
geologist,  we  may  go  out  beyond  the  limits  of  human  events, 
and  grow  familiar  with  those  vast  periods  during  which  the 
earth's  crust  was  deposited  in  the  oceans,  or  smelted  in  the 
furnaces,  or  upheaved  from  the  gas-caverns,  of  nature  :  and, 
accustomed  to  call  the  Alps  and  Andes  recent  elevations, 
and  to  treat  all  living  species  as  only  the  newest  fashion  of 
creative  skill,  we  may  well  feel  as  though  the  hasty  sands 
of  our  particular  generation  were  lost,  and  God  could  have 
no  index  small  enough  to  count  our  individual  life.  With 
the  astronomer,  we  may  take  a  station  external  to  this  earth 
itself,  recede  to  an  era  when  possibly  the  solar  system  was 
but  one  of  creation's  morning  mists,  and  trace  its  history 
as  it  first  spun  itself  into  orbital  rings,  and  then  rolled  itself 
up  into  planetary  globes  :  and  with  an  imagination  occupied 
by  cycles  so  capacious,  for  which  the  old  granite  pillars  of 
the  world  can  scarce,  with  utmost  stretch  of  age,  afford  a 
unit-measure,  it  is  not  strange  if  we  deem  ourselves  trivial 


HAVING,    DOING,    AND   BEING.  313 

as  the  insect,  and  transient  as  the  flake  of  summer  snow. 
Whoever  approaches  the  human  lot  from  this  side  of  thought, 
descending  upon  it  from  the  maxima^  instead  of  ascending 
from  the  minima  of  calculable  things,  will  be  apt  to  think 
it  a  poor  affair,  and  to  regard  it  as  a  dream,  really  com- 
pressed into  a  moment,  but  with  a  delusive  consciousness 
of  years.  Seeing  at  night  how  calm  and  silent  are  the  stars 
far  greater  than  ours,  sending  down  the  same  cold  sharp 
light  as  they  did  on  the  first  traveller  lost  upon  the  mountains 
or  sinking  in  the  sea,  he  may  naturally  look  with  a  smile  or 
a  sigh  at  the  ferment  of  human  passion  and  pursuit,  and 
gaze  on  it  as  on  the  dust-cloud  of  a  distant  army  marching 
to  immediate  death.  "What,"  he  might  say,  "are  the 
achievements  of  your  mightiest  force,  and  the  last  triumphs 
of  your  boasted  civilization  ?  What  do  you  effect  by  the 
vaunted  efforts  of  your  locomotive  skill  ?  Only  certain 
glidings,  which,  a  short  way  off,  are  but  invisible  changes 
of  place  on  the  surface  of  a  bead.  And  what  is  the  end  of 
all  your  successive  systems  of  health  and  disease  ?  —  what 
the  utmost  hope  of  the  skill  of  all  physicians,  and  the  cries 
and  prayers  from  the  whole  infirmary  of  human  ills  ?  Only 
this,  —  that  a  little  respite  may  be  given,  till  the  rising 
pendulum  shall  have  reached  its  fall.  Nay,  what  is  the  aim 
even  of  your  nobler  institutions,  devoted  to  the  mind  ?  On 
what  do  your  ancient  schools  and  universities,  with  genera- 
tion after  generation  of  students,  spend  themselves  amid 
the  murmurs  of  polite  applause  ?  On  the  attempt  to  recover 
a  few  snatches  from  the  sayings  and  doings  of  spirits  that, 
like  yourselves,  had  to  vanish  at  cock-crowing.  And  all  the 
while,  as  you  pant  and  strive  and  hope,  the  great  immovable 
God  is  with  you  close  at  hand,  and  could  tell  you  all  by  a 
whisper,  if  he  would  !  " 

It  is  quite  possible,  in  this  way,  by  bringing  the  human 
career  into  comparison  with  the  stupendous  cycles  that  lie 
around  it,  to  dwarf  its  magnitude,  and  throw  contempt  upon 
its  purposes.     The  prevailing  tendency,  however,  is  all  in 


314  HAVING,    DOING,    AND    BEING. 

the  opposite  direction.  The  thoughts  which  science  presents 
may  operate  as  a  telescope  to  show  us  what  else  there  is 
besides  ourselves,  and  persuade  us  that  we  are  but  as  the 
trembling  leaf  in  the  boundless  forests  of  existence.  But 
those  which  are  offered  by  affection  and  natural  experience 
are  rather  apt  to  interpose  a  microscopic  medium  ;  and, 
instead  of  diminishing  by  comparison  the  whole  of  life,  to 
magnify  every  part  by  concentration.  If  that  life,  as  you 
affirm,  be  but  a  short  visit  to  this  sphere,  it  is  yet  our  only 
visit;  and  the  moments  of  our  stay  acquire  an  intenser 
worth.  If  it  has  just  begun,  and  is  also  on  the  verge  of 
close,  then  we  must  revere  it  doubly,  as  a  fresh  thing,  and 
as  a  thing  about  to  perish  :  two  sanctities  comprise  it  all,  — 
a  first  day  and  a  last ;  and  there  is  no  time  for  custom  to 
dull  the  space  between  the  welcome  and  the  adieu.  Nor, 
after  all,  is  any  conscious  life  proper  to  be  compared  with 
the  huge  periods  of  the  inanimate  world.  Their  giant 
strides  may  roughly  step  from  century  to  century,  and  have 
less  in  them  than  its  quivering  undulations  over  the  smallest 
surface  of  time.  The  two  things  are  absolutely  incom- 
mensurable; and  there  is  no  chronometer  that  can  reckon 
both.  In  moments  of  deep  sorrow,  or  high  faith  ;  when  we 
either  fear  the  last  extremity,  or  hope  for  the  dawn  of  new 
deliverance  ;  when  we  are  sinking  to  the  point  of  lowest 
depression,  or  struggling  on  the  wing  of  highes<t  resolution  ; 
in  startling  agonies  of  duty  that  goad  our  jaded  strength ; 
in  helpless  vigils,  when  we  must  sit  with  folded  hands  and 
wait ;  in  all  crises  of  duty,  of  misery,  of  joy,  of  aspiration ; 
—  how  little  can  the  beat  of  any  clock  count  the  elements 
of  our  existence  then  !  The  moments  are  stretched  into 
an  awful  fulness ;  and  while  the  midnight  star  strikes  the 
meridian  wire,  we  pass  through  more  than  common  years. 
Hence  it  is,  that  no  familiarity  with  physical  periods  can 
induce  us  to  think  lightly  of  the  contents  of  life.  If  God, 
affluent  in  eternities,  is  lavish  of  time  upon  his  universe, 
he  is  economic  of  it  with  us  :   filling  it  with  unutterable 


HAVING,   DOING,   AND   BEING.  315 

experiences,  and  charging  it  with  irrevocable  opportunities. 
With  so  small  an  allowance  of  it  here,  every  part  of  it  may- 
well  appear  a  priceless  treasure.  And  though  too  often 
-vve  grow  careless  of  the  portion  which  we  have,  we  com- 
plain if  there  is  any  that  we  seem  to  lose.  'We  throw  away 
whole  handfuls  of  time  in  heedless  waste,  and  suffer  no 
compunction ;  but  if  God,  with  heavenly  will,  take  from  us 
any  expected  hours,  we  burst  into  faithless  tears.  The  term 
assured  to  us,  we  think,  has  been  cut  short ;  and  the  promised 
value  cruelly  withheld. 

The  truth  is,  that  neither  of  these  vie^vs,  —  that  which 
looks  with  philosophic  slight  on  the  whole  of  mortal  life, 
and  that  which  clings  with  human  fondness  to  every  part, 
especially  if  it  be  denied,  —  can  stand  the  light  of  devout 
and  Christian  thought.  On  the  one  hand,  that  cannot  be 
insignificant  which  God  has  deemed  it  worth  while  to  call 
out  of  eternity,  and  to  set  upon  a  theatre  like  this,  fresh 
with  duty  ever  new,  and  old  with  memories  ever  sacred  ; 
rich  as  Paradise  with  wonder  and  beauty,  only  covered  now 
through  sorrow  with  a  conscious  heaven.  And  that  which 
God  himself  has  brought  hither  to  look  for  awhile  through 
real  living  eyes  of  thought  and  love,  transparent  to  the 
answering  gaze,  can  scarce,  if  we  reflect  on  the  difference 
between  its  presence  and  its  absence,  be  of  less  than  infinite 
value.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  were  wrong  to  measure 
its  worth  to  us  by  the  mere  duration  of  its  stay.  It  would 
be  a  far  inferior  treasure,  were  it  calculable  thus :  and  we 
can  say  nothing  so  depreciatory  of  a  human  life,  as  that  we 
have  lost  half  its  value,  because  it  was  not  twice  as  long. 
If  this  be  so,  the  function  it  performs  for  us  must  be  of  the 
lowest  order ;  not  to  our  love,  and  faith,  and  aspiration, 
which,  once  awakened,  can  be  doubled  by  no  addition  and 
consumed  by  no  subtraction  of  moments ;  but  to  our  pleas- 
ures or  our  gains,  to  which  alone  this  arithmetic  of  quantity 
can  be  applied.  To  treat  a  life  as  incomplete,  is  to  say  that 
its  proper  end   is  unfulfilled ;   is  to  assume  that  a  certain 


316  HAVING,   DOING,   AND   BEING. 

amount  of  time  was  needful  to  realize  that  end  ;  and  that, 
for  want  of  such  amount,  the  existence  granted  becomes  an 
aimless  fragment.  Some  lives  do,  no  doubt,  present  so  poor 
an  aspect,  that  only  by  an  effort  of  strong  faith  can  we 
refrain  from  thinking  thus  :  but  else,  it  is  of  the  mere  mean- 
ness and  penury  of  our  own  spirits,  that  we  lapse  into  so 
unworthy  a  complaint.  If  we  look  for  a  few  moments  into 
the  different  ends  to  which  men  live,  we  shall  soon  see, 
which  of  them  are  measurable  by  quantity,  and  proportioned 
to  the  time  spent  in  their  attainment. 

Some  men  are  eminent  for  what  they  possess:  some,  for 
what  they  achieve:  others,  for  what  they  are.  Having^ 
Doing ^  and  JBeirig^  constitute  the  three  great  distinctions 
of  mankind,  and  the  three  great  functions  of  their  life. 
And  though  they  are  necessarily  all  blended,  more  or  less, 
in  each  individual,  it  is  seldom  difficult  to  say,  which  of 
them  is  prominent  in  the  impression  left  upon  us  by  our 
fellow-man. 

In  every  society,  and  especially  in  a  country  like  our  own, 
there  are  those  who  derive  their  chief  characteristic  from 
what  they  have ;  who  are  always  spoken  of  in  terms  of 
revenue;  and  of  whom  you  would  not  be  likely  to  think 
much,  but  for  the  large  account  that  stands  on  the  world's 
ledger  in  their  name.  In  themselves,  detached  from  their 
favorite  sphere,  you  would  notice  nothing  wise  or  winning. 
At  home,  possibly,  a  dry  and  withered  heart;  among  asso- 
ciates, a  selfish  and  mistrustful  talk  ;  in  the  council,  a  style 
of  low  ignoble  sentiment ;  at  church,  a  formal,  perhaps  an 
irreverent,  dulness ;  betray  a  barren  nature,  and  offer  you 
only  points  of  repulsion,  so  far  as  the  humanities  are  con- 
cerned :  and  you  are  amazed  to  think  that  you  are  looking 
on  the  idols  of  the  exchange.  Their  greatness  comes  out  in 
the  affairs  of  bargain  and  sale,  to  which  their  faculties  seem 
fairly  apprenticed  for  life.  If  they  speak  of  the  past,  it  is 
in  memory  of  its  losses  and  its  gains :  if  of  the  future,  it  is 
to  anticipate  its  incomings  and   investments.     The  whole 


HAVING,   DOING,    AND   BEING.  317 

chronology  of  their  life  is  divided  according  to  the  stages  of 
their  fortunes,  and  the  progress  of  their  dignities.  Their 
children  are  interesting  to  them  principally  as  their  heirs  : 
and  the  making  of  their  will  fulfils  their  main  conception  of 
being  ready  for  their  death.  And  so  completely  do  they 
l^aint  the  grand  idea  of  their  life  on  the  imagination-  of  all 
who  know  them,  that  when  they  die,  the  Mammon-imnge 
cannot  be  removed,  and  it  is  the  fate  of  the  money,  not  of 
the  man,  of  which  we  are  most  apt  to  think.  Having  put 
vast  prizes  in  the  funds,  but  only  unprofitable  blanks  in  the 
admiration  and  the  hearts  of  us,  they  leave  behind  nothing 
but  their  property  ;  or,  as  it  is  expressively  termed,  their 
"  effects^''  —  the  thing  which  they  caused,  the  main  result  of 
their  having  been  alive.  How  plain  is  it  that  we  regard 
them  merely  as  instruments  of  acquisition ;  centres  of  at- 
traction for  the  drifting  of  capital ;  that  they  are  important 
only  as  indications  of  commodities ;  and  that  their  human 
personality  hangs  as  a  mere  label  upon  a  mass  of  treasure ! 
Every  one  must  have  met  with  a  few  instances  in  which  this 
character  is  realized,  and  with  many  in  which,  notwithstand- 
ing the  relief  of  some  redeeming  and  delightful  features,  it 
is  at  least  approached.  In  proportion  as  this  aim,  of  pos- 
session, is  taken  to  be  paramount  in  life,  length  of  days 
must  no  doubt  be  deemed  indispensable  to  the  human  desti- 
nation. The  longer  a  man  lies  out  at  interest,  the  greater 
must  be  the  accumulation.  If  he  is  unexpectedly  recalled, 
every  end  which  he  suggested  is  disappointed :  the  only 
thing  he  seemed  fit  for  cannot  go  on  ;  he  is  a  power  lost 
from  this  sphere,  an  incapacity  thrust  upon  the  other; 
missed  from  the  markets  here,  thrown  away  among  sainted 
spirits  there.  For  himself,  and  for  both  worlds,  the  event 
seems  deplorable  enough :  and  it  is  difficult  to  make  any 
thing  but  confusion  out  of  it.  An  imagination  tacitly  filled 
with  this  conception  of  life,  as  a  stage  prepared  for  enjoy- 
ment and  possession,  must  look  on  a  term  that  is  unfulfilled 
as  on  a  broken  tool,  dropping  in  failure  to  the  earth. 


318  HAVING,    DOING,    AND    BEING. 

Of  those  who  have  thus  lived  to  accumulate  and  enjoy, 
history  is  for  the  most  part  silent ;  having  in  truth  nothing 
to  say.  Not  doing  the  work,  or  joining  in  the  worship  of 
life,  but  only  feasting  at  its  table,  they  break  up  and  drive 
off  into  oblivion  as  soon  as  the  lights  are  out  and  the  wine 
is  spilt.  Belonging  entirely  to  the  present,  they  never  ap- 
pear in  the  past ;  but  sink  with  weight  of  wealth  in  the  dark 
gulf :  —  unless  perchance  some  Croesus  the  rich  is  fortunate 
enough  to  fall  into  association  with  a  Solon  the  wise.  There 
are  no  historical  materials  in  simple  animal  existence,  nor  in 
the  mere  sentient  being  of  a  man,  considered  as  the  suc- 
cessful study  of  comfort  and  receptacle  of  happiness.  His- 
tory is  constructed  by  a  second  and  nobler  class,  —  those 
who  prove  themselves  to  be  here,  not  that  they  may  have, 
but  that  they  may  do ;  to  whom  life  is  a  glorious  labor;  and 
who  are  seen  not  to  work  that  they  may  rest,  but  only  to 
rest  that  they  may  work.  No  sooner  do  they  look  around 
them,  with  the  open  eye  of  reason  and  faith,  upon  the  great 
field  of  the  workl,  than  they  perceive  that  it  must  be  for 
them  a  battle-field  :  and  they  break  up  the  tents  of  ease,  and 
advance  to  the  dangers  of  lonely  enterprise  and  the  conflict 
with  splendid  wrong.  Strong  in  the  persuasion  that  this  is 
a  God's  world,  and  that  his  will  must  rule  it  by  royal  right, 
they  serve  in  the  severe  campaign  of  justice ;  asking  only 
for  the  wages  of  life,  and  scorning  the  prizes  of  spoil  and 
praise.  Wherever  you  find  such,  whether  in  the  field,  in 
the  senate,  or  in  private  life,  you  see  the  genuine  type  of 
the  heroic  character,  —  the  clear  mind,  the  noble  heart,  the 
indomitable  will,  pledged  all  to  some  arduous  and  unselfish 
task :  and  whether  it  be  the  achievement,  with  Cobden,  of 
freedom  of  pacific  commerce  between  land  and  land ;  or, 
with  Clarkson,  of  freedom  of  person  between  man  and  man ; 
or,  with  Cromwell,  of  freedom  of  worship  between  earth 
and  heaven  ;  the  essential  feature  is  in  all  instances  the 
same :  the  man  holds  himself  as  the  mere  instrument  of 
some  social  work ;  commits  himself  in  full  allegiance  to  it ; 


HAVING,   DOING,   AND   BEING.  319 

and  spends  himself  wholly  in  it.  These  "  have  a  baptism  to 
be  baptized  with ;  and  how  are  they  straitened,  till  it  be 
accomplished  !  "  During  the  glorious  conflict  of  such  lives 
it  is  impossible  not  to  look  on  with  breathless  interest. 
Once  possessed  of  their  great  design,  we  watch  its  develop- 
ment with  eager  eye  and  beating  heart.  And  if.  early  in 
the  day,  they  are  struck  down,  we  clasp  our  hands  in  sud- 
den anguish,  and  a  cry  goes  up  that  the  field  is  lost.  And 
though  this  despair  is  a  momentary  lapse  from  true  faith;, 
though  God  never  fails  to  rally  the  forces  of  every  good 
cause  that  has  mustered  for  battle  on  his  earth  ;  yet,  no 
doubt,  the  victory  in  such  a  case  is  deferred :  the  plan  is 
broken  off:  the  painful  sense  of  a  suspended  work,  that 
might  have  been  finished,  remains  upon  survivors'  hearts. 
On  behalf  of  the  noble  actors  themselves,  indeed,  we  have 
no  embarrassment  of  faith  :  there  is  that  within  them  which 
may  well  find  a  home  in  more  worlds  than  one,  and  meet  a 
welcome  wherever  Almighty  Justice  reigns.  We  are  not 
ashamed,  as  with  the  man  of  mere  possession,  to  follow  them 
into  the  higher  transitions  of  their  being,  and  knock  for 
them  at  the  gate  of  better  spheres.  But  there  appears 
something  untimely  and  deplorable  in  the  providence  of  the 
world  they  quit.  The  fruit  has  not  been  permitted  to  ripen 
ere  it  dropped.  The  great  function  of  their  life  required 
time  for  its  fulfilment;  and  time  hns  been  denied.  Their 
beneficent  action  was  wholly  through  the  energies  of  their 
living  will :  and  these  energies  are  laid  for  us  in  unseason- 
able sleep.  And  thus,  while  we  are  ashamed  at  the  giave 
of  the  Epicurean,  we  weep  over  the  departure  of  the  hero. 

But  there  is  a  life  higher  than  either  of  these.  The 
saintly  is  beyond  the  heroic  mind.  To  get  good,  is  animal : 
to  (To  good,  is  human  :  to  be  good,  is  divine.  The  true  use 
of  a  man's  possessions  is  to  help  his  work :  and  the  best 
end  of  all  his  work,  is  to  show  us  what  he  is.  The  noblest 
workers  of  our  world  bequeath  us  nothing  so  great  as  the 
image  of  themselves.     Their  tash^  be  it  ever  so  glorious,  is 


320  HAVING,   DOING,    AND   BEING. 

historical  and  transient :  the  majesty  of  their  spirit  is  es- 
sential and  eternal.  When  the  external  conditions  which 
supplied  the  matter  of  their  work  have  wholly  decayed 
from  the  surface  of  the  earth,  and  become  absorbed  into  its 
substance,  the  perennial  root  of  their  life  remains,  bearing 
a  blossom  ever  fair,  and  a  foliage  ever  green.  And  while 
to  some  God  gives  it  to  show  tliem selves  through  their 
work,  to  others  he  assigns  it  to  show  themselves  without 
even  the  opportunity  of  work.  He  sends  them  transparent 
into  this  world ;  and  leaves  us  nothing  to  gather  and  infer. 
Goodness,  beauty,  truth,  acquired  by  others,  are  original  to 
them;  hiding  behind  the  eye,  thinking  on  the  brow,  and 
making  music  in  the  voice.  The  angels  appointed  to  guard 
the  issues  of  the  pure  life,  seem  rather  to  have  t-aken  their 
station  at  its  fountains,  and  to  pour  into  it  a  sanctity  at  first. 
Such  beings  live  simply  to  express  themselves:  to  stand 
between  heaven  and  earth,  and  mediate  for  our  dull  hearts. 
With  fewer  outward  objects  than  others,  or  at  least  with 
a  less  limited  practical  mission  devoting  them  to  a  fixed 
task,  their  life  is  a  soliloquy  of  love  and  aspiration  ;  the  soul 
not  being,  with  them,  the  servant  of  action,  but  action 
rather  the  needful  articulation  of  the  soul.  Not,  of  course, 
that  they  are,  in  the  slightest  degree,  exempt  from  the 
stern  -and  positive  obligations  of  duty,  or  licensed,  any 
more  than  others,  to  dream  existence  away.  If  once  they 
fall  into  this  snare,  and  cease  to  work,  the  lineaments  of 
beauty  and  goodness  are  exchanged  for  those  of  shame  and 
grief.  Usually  they  do  not  less,  but  rather  more^  than 
others  ;  only  under  somewhat  sorrowful  conditions,  having 
spirits  prepared  for  what  is  more  than  human,  and  being 
obliged  to  move  within  limits  that  are  only  human.  The 
worth  of  such  a  life  depends  little  on  its  quantity :  it  is  an 
affair  of  quality  alone.  These  highest  ends  of  existence 
have  but  slight  relation  to  time.  Years  cannot  mellow  the 
love  already  ripe,  or  purify  the  perceptions  already  clear, 
or  lift  the  aspiration  that  already  enters  heaven.     It  is  with 


HAVING,   DOING,    AND   BEING.  321 

Christ-like  minds,  as  it  was  with  Christ  himself.  His  divine 
work  was  not  in  the  task  that  he  did,  but  in  the  image 
which  he  left.  You  cannot  say  that  there  was  any  great 
business  of  existence,  estimable  by  time,  which  he  set  him- 
self to  achieve,  and  which  you  can  even  imagine  to  be 
broken  off  by  his  departure.  He  lived  enough  to  manifest 
the  heavenly  spirit  and  solemn  dignity  of  life.  At  thirty 
years  he  passed  away :  and  no  one,  I  suppose,  was  ever 
heard  to  lament  that  he  did  not  stay  till  sixty.  He  thought 
indeed,  as  the  faithful  must  ever  think,  that  there  was  a  "  work 
given  him  to  do ; "  unaware  that,  by  his  very  manner  of 
devotion  to  it,  it  was  already  done.  So  eager  was  he 
worthily  to  finish  it,  that,  of  all  his  sorrows,  to  be  cut  short 
in  it  was  the  bitterest  cup  that  might  not  pass  from  him 
except  he  drank  it ;  unconscious  that  the  spirit  and  the  con- 
quest of  that  agony  did  actually  bring  it  to  the  sublimest 
close.  His  life  stood  in  different  relations  to  himself  and 
to  the  world.  To  himself  it  was  a  solemn  trust;  to  the 
world,  the  truth  and  grace  of  God :  to  him,  it  was  given 
as  the  subject  of  achievement ;  to  the  world,  as  the  object 
of  new  faith  and  love.  And  so,  the  early  cross,  so  dark  to 
him,  becomes  the  holiest  vision  of  our  hearts.  It  broke 
nothing  abruptly  off  for  us ;  and  enabled  him  to  leave  a 
presence  upon  the  earth,  sufficient  to  soothe  the  sorrows, 
inspire  the  conscience,  and  deepen  the  earnestness,  of  suc- 
ceeding ages.  And  so  is  it  with  the  least  of  his  disciples, 
whose  mind  is  truly  tinged  with  the  hues  of  the  same 
heavenly  spirit.  The  very  child,  of  too  transient  stay,  may 
paint  on  the  darkness  of  our  sorrow,  so  fair  a  vision  of 
loving  wonder,  of  reverent  trust,  of  deep  and  thoughtful 
patience,  that  a  divine  presence  abides  with  us  for  ever,  as 
the  mild  and  constant  light  of  faith  and  hope.  What  we 
had  deemed  a  glory  of  the  earth  may  prove  but  the  image 
of  a  star  upon  the  stream  of  life,  effaceable  by  the  first 
night-wind  that  sweeps  over  the  waters.  But  that  we  have 
seen  it,  and  looked  into  the  pure  depths  given  for  its  light, 

21 


322  HAVING,    DOING,   AND   BEING. 

is  enough  to  assure  us  that,  though  visionary  below,  it  is 
a  reality  above,  and  has  a  place  among  the  imperishable 
lustres  of  God's  universe.  Thus,  with  attributes  of  being 
that  have  little  concern  with  time,  the  reckoning  of  moments 
is  of  less  account.  The  transitory  reflection  points  to  an 
eternal  beauty.  And  while  human  things  are  learned  by 
the  lessons  of  a  slow  experience,  a  momentary  flash  of 
blessing  may  give  us  what  is  most  divine  ;  and  like  the 
lightning  that  strikes  us  blind,  leave  a  glory  on  the  soul, 
when  our  very  sight  is  gone. 


XXXII. 

THE  FREE-MAN  OF  CHRIST. 


1  Corinthians  vii.  22. 
he  that  is  called  in  the  lord,  being  a  servant,  is  the  lord*s 

free-man:     LIKEWISE     ALSO,     HE     THAT     IS     CALLED,     BEINO     FREE,     IS 
CHRIST'S     SERVANT. 

Freedom,  in  the  most  comprehensive  sense  of  the  word, 
can  evidently  belong  to  Omnipotence  alone.  To  be  exempt 
from  all  controlling  force  without,  is  the  exclusive  preroga- 
tive of  a  Being,  within  whose  nature  are  folded  all  the  active 
powers  of  the  universe,  and  to  whom  there  is  no  external 
cause  but  the  acts  projected  from  his  own  will.  To  be  at 
rest  from  all  conflict  within,  can  be  the  lot  of  no  mind,  sus- 
ceptible of  progressive  attainment  in  excellence :  for  moral 
growth  is  but  a  prolonged  controversy  in  which  conscience 
achieves  victory  after  victory :  and  He  only  whose  holiness 
is  eternal,  original,  incapable  of  increase  or  decline,  can  have 
a  mind  absolutely  serene  and  unclouded ;  of  power  immense, 
but  rapid  and  unreluctant  as  the  lightning ;  of  designs,  how- 
ever majestic,  bursting  without  appreciable  transition  from 
the  conception  to  the  reality.  Descend  to  created  natures ; 
and  whatever  force  they  comprise,  is  a  force  imprisoned  and 
controlled ;  if  by  nothing  else,  at  least  by  the  laws  of  that 
body  which  gives  them  a  locality,  and  affords  them  the  only 
tools  wherewith  to  work  their  will.  The  life  of  beings  that 
are  born  and  ripen  and  die,  or  pass  through  any  stages  of 
transition,  floats  upon  a  current  silent  but  irresistible.  In 
other  spheres  there  may  possibly  exist  rational  beings  un- 


324  THE  FREE-MAN   OF   CHRIST. 

conscious  of  the  restraining  force  of  God  exercised  upon 
them;  whose  desires  do  not  beat  against  their  destiny; 
whose  powers  of  conceiving  and  of  executing,  whether 
absolutely  small  or  great,  are  adjusted  to  perfect  corre- 
spondence. And  since  we  measure  all  things  by  our  own 
ideas,  he  whose  conception  never  overlaps  his  execution, 
can  never  detect  the  poorness  of  his  achievements,  how 
trivial  soever  they  may  be  in  the  eye  of  a  spectator.  But 
man,  at  all  events,  palpably  feels  his  limits;  receives  a 
thousand  checks,  that  remind  him  of  the  foreign  agencies  to 
which  he  is  subject;  glides  like  a  steersman  in  the  night 
over  waters  neither  boundless  nor  noiseless,  but  broken  by 
the  roar  of  the  rapid,  and  dizzy  with  the  dim  shapes  of  rocky 
perils.  Our  whole  existence,  all  its  energy  of  virtue  and  of 
passion,  is,  in  truth,  but  the  struggle  of  free-will  against  the 
chninsthat  bind  us  :  —  happy  he,  that  by  implicit  submission 
to  the  law  of  duty  escapes  the  severity  of  every  other  !  Our 
nature  is  but  a  casket  of  impatient  necessities ;  urgencies 
of  instinct,  of  affection,  of  reason,  of  faith  ;  the  pressure  of 
which  against  the  inertia  of  the  present  determines  the  living 
movements,  and  sustains  the  permanent  unrest,  of  life.  To 
take  the  prescribed  steps  is  difficult;  to  decline  them  and 
stand  still,  impossible.  We  can  no  more  preserve  a  station- 
ary attitude  in  the  moral  world,  than  we  can  refuse  to 
acconapany  the  physical  earth  in  its  rotation.  The  will  may 
be  reluctant  to  stir;  but  it  is  speedily  overtaken  by  pro- 
vocatives that  scorn  the  terms  of  ease,  and  take  no  heed  of 
its  expostulations.  Driven  by  the  recurring  claims  of  the 
bodily  nature,  or  drawn  by  the  permanent  objects  of  the 
spiritual,  all  men  are  impelled  to  effort  by  the  energy  of 
some  want,  that  cannot  have  spontaneous  satisfaction.  The 
laborer  that  earns  his  bread  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow,  is 
chased  by  the  hindmost  of  all  necessities,  —  animal  hunger. 
The  prophet  and  the  saint,  moved  by  the  supreme  of  human 
aspirations,  —  the  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness, — 
embrace  a  life  of  no  less  privation  and  of  severer  conflict. 


THE   FKEE-MAN   OF   CHRIST.  325 

And  between  these  extremes  are  other  ends  of  various  kinds, 
—  renown  for  the  ambitious,  art  for  the  perceptive,  knowl- 
edge for  the  sage,  —  given  to  us  to  graduate  and  allow  in 
fair  proportion.  All  these  are  conscious  powers,  but  all 
imply  a  conscious  resistance.  Each  separately  precipitates 
the  will  upon  a  thousand  obstacles  ;  and  all  together  demand 
the  ceaseless  vigilance  of  conscience  to  preserve  their  order, 
and  prevent  the  encroachments  of  usurpation.  Thus,  all 
action  implies  the  presence  of  some  necessity.  And  if 
other  and  more  liberal  conditions  are  requisite  to  perfect 
freedom,  then  can  no  man  be  ever  free. 

Exemption  then  from  the  sense  of  want  and  the  need  of 
work  is  not  that  which  constitutes  freedom  to  the  human 
being.  Another  form  of  expression  is  sometimes  resorted 
to,  in  order  to  discriminate  the  free  from  the  servile  mind, 
and  contrast  the  nobleness  of  the  one  with  the  abjectness 
of  the  other.  It  is  said  that  the  free-man  acts  from  within, 
on  the  suggestion  of  ideas ;  while  the  slave  is  the  creature 
of  outward  coercion,  and  obevs  some  kind  of  physical  force. 
But  this  language  still  conceals  from  us  the  real  distinction. 
Even  the  man  whose  person,  as  well  as  mind,  is  in  a  condi- 
tion of  slavery,  is  not  necessarily,  or  usually,  under  any  ex- 
ternal and  material  constraint.  Hour  by  hour,  and  day  by 
day,  he  enjoys  immunity  from  bodily  compulsion ;  and 
habitually  lives  at  one  remove  or  more  from  the  applica- 
tion of  direct  sensation  to  his  will.  He  too,  like  other  men, 
is  worked  by  an  ideal  influence,  —  a  fear  that  haunts,  an 
image  that  disturbs  him.  When  the  field-serf  plies  his 
spade  with  new  energy  at  the  approaching  voice  of  the 
steward,  it  is  not  that  any  muscular  grasp  seizes  on  his 
limbs  and  enforces  a  quicker  movement ;  but  that  a  mental 
terror  is  awakened,  and  the  phantom  of  the  lash  flies 
through  his  startled  fancy.  And,  in  higher  cases  of  obe- 
dience, it  is  proportionally  more  evident,  that  the  physical 
objects  which  are  the  implements  for  procuring  submission 
fulfil  their  end  by   the   mere   power   of  suggestion.     The 


326  THE   FREE-MAN  OF   CHKTST. 

eagle  of  the  Roman  legion,  the  cross  in  the  battles  of  the 
crusades,  reared  its  head  above  the  hosts  upon  the  field ; 
and  wherever  this  instrument,  made  by  the  chisel  and  the 
saw,  was  moved  about  hither  and  thither,  it  drew  to  it  the 
wave  of  fight,  and  swayed  the  living  mass,  content  to  be 
mowed  down  themselves,  if  it  alone  were  saved.  It  was 
an  emblem  of  things  most  powerful  with  their  hearts ;  and 
illustrates,  by  another  example,  the  truth,  that  the  force 
which  persuades  the  submissive  will  is,  in  all  instances,  from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest,  internal  and  ideal.  The  differ- 
ence between  the  free  and  the  servile  must  be  sought,  not 
in  the  distinction  between  a  physical  and  a  mental  impulse, 
but  in  the  different  order  of  ideas  in  which  the  action  of  the 
two  has  its  source. 

There  are  two  governing  ideas  that,  without  material 
error,  may  be  said  to  rule  the  actions  of  mankind,  and  share 
between  them  the  dominion  of  all  human  souls ;  the  idea 
of  pleasure  and  pain  /  and  the  idea  of  the  noble  and  ignoble. 
Every  one,  in  every  deed,  follows  either  what  he  enjoys,  or 
what  he  reveres.  Now  he  and  he  only  is  free  who  im- 
plicitly submits  to  that  which  he  deeply  venerates ;  who 
takes  part,  offensive  and  defensive,  with  the  just  and  holy 
against  the  encroachments  of  evil ;  who  feels  his  self-de* 
nials  to  be  his  privilege,  not  his  loss  ;  a  victory  that  he  has 
won,  not  a  spoil  that  he  has  been  obliged  to  forego.  Such  a 
one  is  free,  because  he  is  ruled  by  no  power  which  he  feels 
to  be  unrightful  and  usurping,  but  maintains  in  ascendency 
the  Divine  Spirit  that  has  an  eternal  title  to  the  monarchy 
of  all  souls ;  because  he  is  never  driven  to  do  that  which  he 
knows  to  be  beneath  him ;  because  he  is  conscious  no  longer 
of  severe  internal  conflict,  or  it  issues  in  secure  enfranchise- 
ment ;  because  self-contempt  and  fear  apd  restlessness,  and 
all  the  feelings  peculiar  to  a  state  of  thraldom,  are  entirely 
unknown.  And  they  all  are  slaves,  —  liable  to  the  pecul- 
iar sins  and  miseries  of  the  servile  state,  —  to  its  mean- 
ness, its    cowardice,    its   treachery ;  —  who    cither    have 


THE   FREE-MAN   OF   CHRIST.  327 

nothing  wliich  they  revere,  or,  haying  it,  insult  its  author- 
ity, and  trample  it  under  the  Bacchanalian  feet  of  pleasure. 
It  is  the  worst  and  last  curse  of  actual  personal  slavery,  that 
it  extinguishes  the  notion  of  rights,  and  with  it  the  sense 
of  duties ;  that  it  quenches  the  desire  and  conscious  capacity 
for  better  things  ;  that  degradation  becomes  impossible  ; 
that  blows  may  be  inflicted,  and  the  pain  go  no  farther 
than  the  flesh  ;  and  that  by  feeding  the  eyes  with  the 
prospect  of  pleasure,  or  brandishing  the  threat  of  infliction, 
you  may  move  the  creature  as  you  will.  And  whenever,  by 
men  at  large,  nothing  is  esteemed  holy  and  excellent,  and 
enjoyment  or  suffering  are  the  only  measures  of  good,  the 
essence  of  the  same  debasement  exists.  The  slave  flies  the 
idea  of  pain ;  the  voluptuary  pursues  the  idea  of  pleasure  : 
a  menace  or  a  bribe  is  the  force  that  makes  a  tool  of  both  ; 
and  they  must  be  referred  to  the  same  class.  Nor  does  the 
analogy  between  them  fail  in  cases  of  mixed  character  and 
imperfect  degradation.  If  the  serf  has  not  sunk  to  the  level 
which  it  is  the  tendency  of  his  condition  to  reach,  if  he  has 
still  his  dreams  of  justice,  his  half-formed  sense  of  human 
dignity,  it  is  then  his  privilege  to  be  wretched  ;  to  feel  an 
agonizing  variance  between  his  nature  and  his  lot,  and 
writhe  as  the  iron  enters  his  soul.  And  a  like  miserable 
shame  does  every  one  suffer,  who  offers  indignity  to  his 
own  higher  capacities  ;  who  suppresses  in  silence  and  in- 
action the  impulses  of  his  devout  affections,  and  is  seduced 
or  terrified  into  conscious  vileness.  It  is  not  without  suf-' 
ficient  reason  that  all  those  whose  wills  are  of  self-indul- 
gent make,  are  charged  with  being  enthralled.  Their  minds 
have  the  very  stamp  of  slavery. 

The  essential  root  then  of  all  dependence  and  servility  of 
soul  lies  in  this,  that  the  mind  loves  pleasure  more  than  God. 
The  essence  of  true  spiritual  liberty  is  in  this ;  that  the 
mind  has  high  objects  which  it  loves  better  than  its  own 
indulgence ;  in  the  service  of  which  hardship  and  death  are 
honorable  and  welcome ;   which  must  be  subordinated  to 


328  THE   FREE-MAN   OF   CHRIST. 

nothing ;  which  men  are  not  simply  to  pursue  in  order  to 
live ;  but  which  they  live  in  order  to  pursue.  In  acknowl- 
edging the  pleasurable  as  supreme,  consists  the  real  degra- 
dation and  disloyalty  of  the  one :  in  vowing  undivided 
allegiance  to  what  is  worthy,  true,  and  right,  consists  the 
power  and  freedom  of  the  other. 

Let  the  Christian  beware,  as  he  loves  the  birth-right  of  a 
child  of  God,  how  he  takes  up  any  other  and  more  super- 
ficial idea  of  moral  liberty  than  this.  Especially  let  him  not 
yield  to  the  prevalent  and  growing  feeling  of  these  days, 
that  there  is  something  disgraceful  in  obedience  altogether ; 
—  that  it  is  an  unmanly  attitude  of  mind  ;  and  that  if  occa- 
sions do  occur  in  human  life  when  self-will  must  succumb,  it 
is  best  to  slur  over  so  annoying  a  crisis,  and  at  all  events 
avoid  the  appearance  of  capitulation.  The  heart  that 
secretly  feels  thus  has  never  felt  the  contact  of  Christ's 
divine  wisdom  :  the  slightest  touch  of  but  the  hem  of  his 
garment  in  the  press  and  crowd  of  life,  would  have  cured 
the  burning  of  this  inward  fever.  For,  is  not  this  insubordi- 
nate will  fighting  with  its  lot,  instead  of  loving  it,  —  trying 
bolts  and  bars  against  it,  and  standing  hostile  siege,  instead 
of  throwing  open  its  gates,  and  with  reverent  hospitality 
entertaining  it  as  an  angel  visitant?  Great  and  sacred  is 
obedience,  my  friends  :  he  who  is  not  able,  in  the  highest 
majesty  of  manhood,  to  obey,  with  clear  and  open  brow,  a 
Law  higher  than  himself,  is  barren  of  all  faith  and  love ; 
and  tightens  his  chains,  moreover,  in  struggling  to  be  free. 
A  childlike  trust  of  heart,  that  can  take  a  hand,  and  wonder- 
ing walk  in  paths  unknown  and  strange,  is  the  prime  requi- 
site of  all  religion.  Let  the  Great  Shepherd  lead  ;  and  by 
winding  ways,  not  without  green  pastures  and  still  waters, 
we  shall  climb  insensibly,  and  reach  the  .tops  of  the  ever- 
lasting hills,  where  the  winds  are  cool  and  the  sight  is  glori- 
ous. But,  in  the  noon  of  life,  to  leap  and  struggle  against 
the  adamantine  precipice  will  only  bruise  our  strength,  and 
cover  us  with  sultry  dust.    Among  the  thousand  indications 


THE   FEEE-MAN    OF   CHRIST.  329 

how  far  men  have  wandered  from  this  temper,  and  poisoned 
their  minds  with  the  sophistries  of  self-will,  this  is  enough : 

—  that  there  are  some  who,  instead  of  self-abandonment  to 
God,  appear  to  think  that  they  can  put  him  and  his  truth 
under  obligation  to  themselves,  and  that  they  confer  a  great 
favor  in  encouraging  the  public  regard  to  his  will  and  wor- 
ship ;  who,  having  made  up  their  minds  that  Christianity  is 
useful  in  many  ways,  and  of  excellent  service  in  managing 
the  weaker  portion  of  mankind,  resolve  to  patronize  it. 
Well ;  —  it  is  an  ancient  arrogance,  lasting  as  the  vanities  of 
the  human  heart.  The  Pharisee,  it  would  appear,  belongs 
to  a  sect  never  extinct :  he  lives  immortal  upon  the  earth ; 
and  in  our  day,  like  Simon  of  old,  graciously  condescends  to 
ask  the  Lord  Jesus  to  dine  ! 

Nor  is  there  any  truth  in  the  notion  that  it  must  be  diS' 
graceful  to  serve  and  obey  the  will  of  our  fellow-men  ;  of 
our  equals  ;  of  those  even  who  are  weaker  and  not  wiser 
than  ourselves.  It  depends  altogether  on  the  feeling  that 
prompts  the  submission ;  whether  it  be  self-interest  or  rev- 
erence. To  be  controlled  by  others  against  our  idea  of  the 
pleasant,  is  by  no  means  necessarily  debasing :  to  be  con- 
trolled by  them  against  our  idea  of  the  right,  is.  The  gross 
conception  of  liberty,  which  takes  it  to  consist  in  doing 
whatever  we  like^  tends  only  to  a  restless  personal  indulgence, 

—  to  a  burning,  insatiable  thirst  for  selfish  happiness,  the 
importunity  of  which  renders  this  fancied  freedom  bitter 
as  the  vilest  slavery.  Does  any  one  doubt,  whether  sub- 
jection the  most  absolute  can  ever  be  noble  ?  Go  into  a 
home  where  a  child  lies  sick,  —  one  of  a  joyous  family  where 
often  merry  voices  ring  from  morn  to  night.  Silence,  the 
unconscious  forerunner  of  death,  flits  through  the  house, 
touching  with  her  seal  the  lips  even  of  the  gayest  prattler  ; 
and  when  the  faint  cry  of  feverish  waking  frets  forth  from 
the  pillow,  how  fleet  the  answer  to  the  call !  how  soft  the 
mother's  cheerful  words  from  out  the  anguished  heart !  how 
prompt  the  father's  hand  with  the  cup  of  cold  water  to  cool 


830  THE   FREE-MAN   OF    CHRIST. 

the  parched  tongue !  Every  wayward  wish,  perhaps  dis- 
carded soon  as  formed,  swift  messengers  glide  to  and  fro 
to  gratify :  every  burst  of  impatience  falls  softly  and  with- 
out recoil  on  playmates  never  wounded  so  before.  No 
despot  was  ever  so  obeyed  as  this  little  child,  whose  will 
is  for  awhile  the  sole  domestic  law  :  for  despots  acquire  no 
such  title  to  command.  But  this  title,  recorded  in  God's 
hand-writing  of  love  on  the  tablets  of  our  humanity,  we 
must  recognize  and  obey.  The  terms  of  it  proclaim,  in 
defiance  of  the  pretensions  of  self-will,  that  the  service  of 
others  is  our  divinest  freedom  ;  and  that  the  law  which  rules 
us  becomes  the  charter  that  disenthrals  us.  Nay,  to  work 
patiently  in  faith  and  love,  to  do  not  what  we  like,  but 
what  we  revere,  confers  not  liberty  only  but  power.  He 
at  least  who,  of  all  our  race  was  the  most  indubitably  free,- 
and  the  great  emancipator  too,  had  in  him  this  attribute, 
that  "  he  pleased  not  himself,"  and  esteemed  it  his  mission 
"  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister."  And  there- 
fore did  he  obtain  a  name  above  every  name,  and  put  the 
world  beneath  his  feet.  Having  claimed  nothing,  not  even 
himself,  it  is  given  him  to  inherit  all  things.  His  power 
indeed  over  men  was  slow  in  gathering,  and  they  that  loved 
him  in  his  mortal  life,  and  lived  and  suffered  for  his  sake, 
were  few.  Had  he  needed  then  a  rescue  and  a  retinue,  he 
must  have  looked  to  the  "legions  of  angels"  who  alone 
were  qualified  for  a  reverence  and  fidelity  so  true.  But 
now  let  him  come ;  and  would  not  the  legions  of  our  world 
throng  forth  to  meet  him  ;  casting  the  will  of  pride  beneath 
his  feet,  strewing  his  path  with  flowers  of  joy  which  he 
has  caused  to  bloom,  and  flinging  their  glad  hosannas  to 
the  sky ! 

By  the  meekest  ministrations  did  the  Lord  acquire  his 
blessed  sway.  How  different  is  the  method  usually  resorted 
to  in  order  to  obtain  the  services  of  others !  Instead  of 
thinking,  speaking,  acting  freely,  and  in  the  divine  spirit 
of  duty,  and  leaving  it  to  God  to  append  what  influence  and 


THE   FEEE-MAN   OF    CHEIST.  831 

authority  he  may  see  fit,  men  begin  by  coveting  the  services 
of  others,  and  resolving  to  have  them :  and,  being  sure  that 
they  can  at  least  be  purchased  by  money,  they  "  make  haste 
to  get  rich ; "  often  hurrying  over  every  species  of  mean 
compliance  for  this  purpose,  in  the  wretched  hope  of  earning 
their  enfranchisement  in  the  end.  This  process  of  making 
their  moral  liberty  contingent  upon  the  purse,  is  character- 
istically termed  "  gaining  an  independence^  This  very 
phrase  is  a  satire  upon  the  morals  of  the  class  that  invented 
it,  and  the  nation  that  adopts  it.  We  then  are  a  people 
who  express  by  the  same  word  the  freedom  of  the  mind, 
the  high  rule  of  conscience  and  conviction,  and  a  thing  of 
gold,  that  can  be  kept  at  a  bank,  or  invested  in  the  funds. 
With  us,  broad  acres  must  go  before  bold  deeds :  one  must 
possess  an  estate  before  he  can  be  a  man.  And  so,  to  "win 
an  independence,"  many  an  aspirant  becomes  a  sycophant : 
to  "  win  an  independence,"  he  licks  the  feet  of  every  dis- 
grace that  can  add  a  shilling  to  his  fortune :  to  "  win  an 
independence,"  he  courts  the  men  whom  he  despises,  and 
stoops  to  the  pretences  that  he  hates :  to  "  win  an  inde- 
pendence," he  solemnly  professes  that  which  he  secretly 
derides,  and  grows  glib  in  uttering  falsehoods  that  should 
scald  his  lips.  Truly,  this  modern  idol  is  a  god,  who  com- 
pels his  votaries  to  crawl  up  the  steps  of  his  throne.  And 
when  the  homage  has  been  paid,  and  the  prize  is  gained, 
how  noble  a  creature  must  the  worshipper  issue  forth, 
who  by  such  discipline,  has  achieved  his  "  independence  " 
at  last ! 

This  miserable  heathenism  is  simply  reversed  in  the 
Christian  method  and  estimate  of  liberty.  The  road  to 
genuine  si)iritual  freedom,  taking,  it  may  seem,  a  strange 
direction,  lies  through  what  the  older  moralists  term  "  Self- 
annihilation."  Renounce  we  our  wishes,  and  the  opposi- 
tions that  bear  against  us  inevitably  vanish.  As  force  is 
made  evident  only  by  resistance,  necessity  is  perceptible  only 
by  the  pressure  it  offers  to  our  claims  and  desires.     He  who 


832  THE  TREE-MAN  OF   CHRIST. 

resists  not  at  all,  feels  no  hostile  power;  is  chafed  by  no 
irritation;  mortified  by  no  disappointment.  He  bends  to 
the  storm  as  it  sweeps  by,  and  lifts  a  head  serene  when  it 
is  gone.  Nor  is  his  liberty  merely  negative :  self-will  is 
displaced  only  to  make  way  for  God's  will :  and  weakness 
is  surrendered  that  almightiness  may  be  enthroned.  The 
positive  empire  of  the  right  takes  the  place  of  a  feeble  and 
contested  sway.  The  efficacy  of  the  change  is  sure  to  be 
seen  in  achievement  no  less  than  in  endurance.  Over  him 
that  shall  undergo  it,  the  world  and  men  lose  all  their  de- 
terring power.  Do  what  they  may  with  their  instruments 
of  persecution  and  derision,  none  of  these  things  move  him. 
They  cannot  sting  him  into  scorn.  His  ends  lie  far  beyond 
their  reach.  Who  can  hinder  him  from  following  that 
Avhich  he  reveres;  from  embracing  in  his  love  the  world 
that  crushes  him ;  and  remaining  true  to  the  God  that  tries 
him  as  by  fire  ?  It  is  the  Son  that  has  made  him  free,  and 
he  is  free  indeed ! 


XXXIII. 
THE  GOOD   SOLDIER  OF  JESUS   CHRIST. 


2  Timothy  ii.  3. 
thou  therefore  endure  hardness,  as  a  good  soldier  of  jesus 

CHRIST. 

There  would  seem  to  be  an  incurable  variance  between  the 
life  which  men  covet  for  themselves  and  that  which  they 
admire  in  others ;  nay,  between  the  lot  which  they  would 
choose  beforehand,  and  that  in  which  they  glory  afterwards. 
In  prospect,  nothing  appears  so  attractive  as  ease  and 
licensed  comfort;  in  retrospect,  nothing  so  delightful  as 
toil  and  strenuous  service.  Half  the  actions  of  mankind  are 
for  the  diminution  of  labor;  yet  labor  is  the  thing  they 
most  universally  respect.  We  should  think  it  the  greatest 
gain  to  get  rid  of  effort ;  yet  if  we  could  cancel  from  the 
past  those  memorable  men  in  whom  it  reached  its  utmost 
intensity,  and  whose  whole  existence  was  a  struggle,  we 
should  leave  human  nature  without  a  lustre,  and  empty 
history  of  its  glory.  The  aim  which  God  assigns  to  us  as 
our  highest  is  indeed  the  direct  reverse  of  that  which  we 
propose  to  ourselves.  He  would  have  us  in  perpetual  con- 
flict ;  —  we  crave  an  unbroken  peace.  He  keeps  us  ever 
on  the  march ;  —  we  pace  the  green  sod  by  the  way  with 
many  a  sigh  for  rest.  He  throws  us  on  a  rugged  universe ; 
— ^^and  our  first  care  is  to  make  it  smooth.  His  resolve  is 
to  demand  from  us,  without  ceasing,  a  living  power,  a  force 
fresh  from  the  spirit  he  has  given ;  ours,  to  get  into  such 
settled  ways,  that  life  may  almost  go  of  itself,  with  scarce 


334  THE   GOOD   SOLDIER   OF   JESUS    CHRIST. 

the  trouble  of  winding  up.  So  that  time,  administered  by 
him,  is  always  breaking  up  the  old  :  by  us,  is  riveting  and 
confimiing  it.  With  him,  it  is  the  source  of  new  growths 
and  fresh  combinations ;  which  we  proceed,  as  long  as  we 
can,  to  cut  down  and  accommodate  to  the  order  which  they 
interrupt.  He  employs  it  in  rolling  the  forest  into  the  river, 
and  turning  the  stream  from  our  abodes;  in  burying  our 
fields  and  villages  beneath  the  shifting  sand-hills,  which  we 
strive  to  bind  with  grassy  roots ;  in  bringing  back  the  marsh 
on  our  neglected  lands,  and  setting  us  again  the  problem 
of  pestilence  and  want.  Every  way  he  urges  our  reluctant 
will.  He  grows  the  thistle  and  the  sedge :  but  expects  us 
to  raise  the  olive  and  the  corn ;  having  given  us  a  portion 
of  strength  and  skill  for  such  end.  He  directs  over  the  earth 
the  restless  wave  of  human  population,  and  brings  about 
those  new  conditions  from  which  spring  the  rivalries  and 
heats  of  nations :  and  expects  us  to  evolve  peace  and  justice  ; 
having  inspired  us  with  reason  and  affection  for  this  end. 
He  leaves  in  each  man's  lot  a  thicket  of  sharp  temptations : 
and  expects  him,  though  with  bleeding  feet,  to  pass  firmly 
through  ;  having  given  him  courage,  conscience,  and  a  guide 
divine,  to  sustain  him  lest  he  faint. 

And,  after  all,  in  spite  of  the  inertia  of  their  will,  men  are, 
in  their  inmost  hearts,  on  the  side  of  God,  rather  than  their 
own,  in  this  matter.  They  know  it  would  be  a  bad  thing 
for  them  to  have  nothing  to  resist.  They  would  like  it,  but 
they  could  not  honor  it ;  and  in  proportion  as  it  was  com- 
fortable, it  would  be  contemptible.  They  have  always  paid 
their  most  willing  homage  to  those  who  have  refused  to  sit 
down  and  break  bread  with  evil  things,  and  have  made  a 
battle-field  of  life.  Even  out  of  the  primitive  conflict  with 
brute  Nature^  in  which  rocks  were  split,  and  monsters  tamed, 
they  evoked  a  God ;  and,  under  the  name  of  Hercules^  in- 
vented an  excuse  for  their  first  and  simplest  worship.  No 
sooner  is  this  physical  contest  closed,  and  the  earth  com- 
pelled to  yield  a  roadway  and  a  shelter  to  men,  than  the 


THE  GOOD   SOLDIER   OF  JESUS   CHRIST.  335 

scene  of  struggle  is  changed,  and  they  come  into  conflict 
■with  each  other.  Instead  of  dead  resistance  they  encounter 
living  force  :  from  obstructive  matter  their  competitor  rises 
to  aggressive  mind  :  and  whoever  shows  himself  master  of 
the  higher  qualities  demanded  in  the  collision,  for  justice' 
sake,  of  man  with  man,  —  the  fixed  resolve,  the  dauntless 
courage,  the  subjection  of  appetite,  the  sympathy  with  the 
weak  and  the  oppressed,  —  is  honored  by  all  as  a  hero,  and 
remembered  by  his  nation  as  its  pride.  But  when  the  game 
of  war  is  done,  it  is  found  that  in  struggling  to  a  firm  and 
established  order  of  society,  men  have  not  got  rid  of  all 
their  foes  and  driven  evil  from  off  their  world.  Inward 
corruption  may  waste  what  outward  assault  could  not  de- 
stroy. Amid  the  luxuries  and  repose  of  peace,  the  springs 
of  moral  hardihood  become  enfeebled;  guilty  negligence, 
indulgent  laxity,  plausible  selfishness,  and  even  greedy 
hypocrisy,  eat  into  the  world's  heart.  A  secret  spirit  of 
temptation,  too  powerful  for  its  degeneracy,  hovers  over  it 
and  threatens  to  darken  it  into  a  hell :  when  lo  !  at  the 
crisis  of  its  fate,  there  comes  forth  one  to  meet  and  to  defy 
even  this  invisible  fiend  of  moral  evil^  and  by  the  wonders 
of  prayer  and  toil  and  sorrow,  make  Lucifer  as  lightning  fall 
from  heaven  ;  one,  far  different  from  the  strong  arm  that 
subdues  creation,  and  the  brave  heart  that  conquers  men; 
being  the  Divine  Soul  that  puts  to  flight  the  hosts  of  Satan, 
and,  as  the  leader  and  perfecter  of  faith,  pushes  the  victo- 
ries of  men  into  the  only  unconquered  realm,  —  the  shadowy 
domain  of  sin  and  its  dread  prisons  of  remorse.  Thus  the 
primitive  conflict  with  nature,  which  makes  a  Hercules, 
rises  into  the  conflict  with  man,  which  makes  the  hero,  and 
culminates  in  that  infinitely  higher  conflict  with  the  spirit 
of  eyil,  which  is  impersonated  in  Christ.  We  instinctively 
do  homage  in  some  sort  to  them  all;  only  admiring  the 
former  as  manly  ;  and  reverencing  the  last  as  godlike.  And 
it  may  be  remarked  that,  as  the  world  has  passed  through 
these  several  stages  of  strife  to  produce  a  Christendom ;  so, 


336  THE   GOOD    SOLDIER   OF   JESUS    CHRIST. 

by  relaxing  in  the  enterprises  it  has  learnt,  does  it  tend 
downwards,  through  inverted  steps,  to  wildness  and  the 
"waste  again.  Let  a  people  give  up  their  contest  with  moral 
evil;  disregard  the  injustice,  the  ignorance,  the  greedi- 
ness, that  may  prevail  among  them,  and  part  more  and  more 
with  the  Christian  element  of  their  civilization  ;  and,  in 
declining  this  battle  with  sin,  they  will  inevitably  get  em- 
broiled with  men.  Threats  of  war  and  revolution  punish 
their  unfaithfulness  :  and  if  then,  instead  of  retracing  their 
steps,  they  yield  again  and  are  driven  before  the  storm  ;  — 
the  very  arts  they  had  created,  the  structures  they  had 
raised,  the  usages  they  had  established,  are  swept  away: 
"  in  that  very  day  their  thoughts  perish."  The  portion  they 
had  reclaimed  from  the  young  earth's  ruggedness  is  lost; 
and  failing  to  stand  fast  against  man,  they  finally  get  em- 
broiled with  Nature,  and  are  thrust  down  beneath  her  ever- 
living  hand. 

The  law  of  conflict  which  God  thus  terribly  proclaims  in 
the  history  of  nations,  is  no  less  distinctly  legible  in  the 
moral  life  of  individuals.  In  an  old  and  complicated  struct- 
ure of  society,  the  number  is  multiplied  of  those  who  exist 
in  a  state  of  benumbed  habit ;  who  walk  through  their  years 
methodically,  not  finding  it  needful  to  be  more  than  half 
awake ;  who  take  their  passage  through  human  life  in  an 
easy  chair,  and  no  more  think  of  any  self-mortifying  work 
than  of  the  ancient  pilgrimage  on  foot ;  and  are  so  pleased 
with  the  finish  and  varnish  of  the  world  around  them,  as  to 
fancy  demons  and  dangers  all  cleaned  out.  And  thus  the 
perfected  customs,  the  smooth,  macadamized  ways  of  life, 
which  are  all  excellent  as  facilities  for  swifter  activity,  have 
the  effect  of  putting  activity  to  sleep  ;  the  means  of  helping 
us  to  our  proper  ends  become  the  means  of  our  wholly 
forgetting  ihem;  and  looking  out  of  the  windows,  we  leave 
behind  the  commission  on  which  we  are  sent,  and  set  up  as 
travellers  for  pleasure.  This  kind  of  peril  is  the  peculiar 
temptation  which  besets  all,  and  makes  imbeciles  of  many, 


THE   GOOD    SOLDIER   OF   JESUS    CHRIST.  337 

in  an  artiiicial  community  like  ours.  The  battle  of  life  is 
not  now,  so  often  as  of  old,  thrust  upon  us  from  without ;  it 
does  not  give  us  the  first  blow,  which  it  were  poltroonery 
to  fly ;  but  it  is  internal  and  invisible  ;  it  has  to  be  sought 
and  found  by  voluntary  enterprise  ;  it  is  not  with  palpable 
flesh  and  blood  beneath  the  sun,  but  with  viewless  spirits, 
that  cling  to  us  in  the  dark.  To  capture  the  appetites  and 
make  them  content  with  their  proper  servitude ;  to  change 
the  heart  of  ambition,  and  turn  its  aspiring  eye  from  the 
lamp  of  heathen  glory  to  the  starlight  of  a  Christian  sanc- 
tity ;  to  seize  anger  and  yoke  it  under  curb  of  reason  to  the 
service  of  justice  and  of  right ;  to  lash  the  slugi^ish  will  to 
quicker  and  more  earnest  toil ;  to  charm  the  dull  affections 
into  sweeter  and  more  lively  moods,  and  tempt  their  timid 
shyness  to  break  into  song  and  mingle  voices  with  the 
melody  of  life ;  to  rouse  pity  from  its  sleep  and  compel  it  to 
choose  a  task  and  begin  its  plans;  —  all  this  implies  a  vigi- 
lance, a  devotion,  an  endurance,  which,  though  only  natural 
/  to  the  "  good  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ,"  are  beyond  the  mark 
of  the  sceptics  and  triflers  of  the  present  age. 

I  have  said,  sceptics  and  triflers.  And  be  assured  that 
the  conjunction  is  true  and  natural.  The  shrinking  from 
difficulty,  the  dread  of  ridicule,  the  love  of  ease,  which  drain 
off  the  sap  of  a  man's  moral  earnestness,  soon  dry  up  the 
sources  of  all  moral  faith  from  the  very  roots  of  him. 
Though  in  one  sense  it  is  true  that  he  must  believe  be- 
fore he  acts,  yet  assuredly  he  will  not  long  go  on  believing, 
when  he  has  ceased  to  act.  The  coward  who  skulks  from 
the  fight  mutters,  as  he  retires,  that  "  there  is  really  noth- 
ing worth  fighting  for."  And  those  who  decline  the  high 
battle  of  the  Christian  life  persuade  themselves,  that  there 
is  no  worthy  field,  no  peremptory  call,  no  dreadful  foe  ;  and 
the  clarion  of  God,  which  pierces  and  inspires  faithful  souls 
is  no  more  to  them  than  the  pipe  of  hypocrites.  The  plain 
of  prophet's  warfare,  where  every  step  should  be  circum- 
spect, becomes  in  their  eyes  a  soft  and  fruitful  stroll ;  and 


338  THE    GOOD   SOLDIER   OF   JESUS   CHRIST. 

the  sins  which  good  men  have  spent  themselves  in  driving 
back,  turn  out  to  be  the  pleasantest  companions,  of  whom  it 
was  quite  a  bigotry  to  think  harm.  Instances  of  this  kind 
of  self-sophistication  must  have  presented  themselves  to  the 
observation  of  all.  They  plainly  show,  that  any  truth  a 
man  ceases  to  live  by  Jiecessarily  becomes  to  him,  if  he  only 
persevere,  an  entire  falsehood.  God  insists  on  having  a  con- 
currence between  our  practice  and  our  thought.  If  we 
proceed  to  make  a  contradiction  between  them,  he  forth- 
with begins  to  abolish  it ;  and  if  the  will  does  not  rise 
to  the  reason,  the  reason  must  be  degraded  to  the  will. 
This  is  no  other  than  that  "giving  over  of  men  to  a 
reprobate  mind,"  by  which  "  the  truth  of  God  is  changed 
into  a  lie." 

It  is  needless  to  point  out  the  several  devices  by  which 
practical  unfaithfulness  contrives  to  bring  about  speculative 
unbelief.  They  are  almost  as  various  as  the  individual 
minds  producing  them  :  and  agree  only  in  their  result ;  viz. 
the  loss  of  all  moral  earnestness ;  the  decline  of  any  feeling 
of  reality  about  the  higher  ends  of  life ;  the  disinclination 
to  any  thing  that  interrupts  the  easy  play  of  self-love ; 
and  the  subsidence  of  the  mighty  wind  of  resolution  which 
should  sweep  direct  and  steady  through  the  true  man's 
course,  into  fitful  airs  of  affectation  and  puffs  of  caprice. 
It  is  not  the  failure  of  this  or  that  doctrinal  conviction,  that 
we  need  in  itself  lament ;  of  this  sort  we  could  part  per- 
haps with  a  good  deal  of  helpless  trying  to  believe,  without 
being  at  all  the  worse :  but  it  is  the  loosening  of  moral 
faith ;  the  fluctuating  state  of  the  boundary  between  right 
and  wrong,  or  even  the  suspicion  of  its  non-existence ;  the 
absence  from  men's  minds  of  any  thing  worth  living  and 
dying  for  ;  the  lawyer-like  impartiality,  consisting  of  an  in- 
discriminate advoca(?y,  for  hire  or  favor,  of  any  cause  irre- 
spective of  its  goodness,  — this  it  is  that  marks  how  we  are 
drifting  away  from  our  proper  anchorage.  We  seem  to 
have  reached  an  age  of  soft  affections  and  emasculated  con* 


THE   GOOD   SOLDIER   OF   JESUS   CHRIST.  339 

science,  full  of  pity  for  pain  and  disease,  of  horror  at  blood 
and  death ;  but  doubting  whether  any  thing  is  wicked  that 
is  not  cruel,  and  reconciling  itself  even  to  that  on  sufficient 
considerations  of  advantage.  Does  the  complaint  appear 
too  strong  and  eager?  It  is,  however,  solemn  and  deliber- 
ate: for  when  I  look  back  over  a  few  years,  I  find  there 
is  no  sort  of  personal  libertinism,  or  domestic  infidelity,  of 
mercantile  dishonesty ;  no  breach  of  faith  in  states,  no  mean 
dishonor  in  officials,  no  shuffling  expediency  in  public  life  ; 
no  kindling  of  national  malignity,  no  outrage  of  military 
atrocity,  no  extreme  of  theological  Jesuitry,  —  which  we 
have  not  heard  excused  by  amiable  laxity,  and  shrugged  off 
into  the  dark;  or  palliated  in  books  enjoying  disgraceful 
popularity;  or  defended  and  admired  by  statesmen  who 
should  elevate  and  not  deprave  a  nation's  mind.  Is  it  then 
too  much  to  fear,  that  the  new  generation  may  grow  up 
with  bewildered  vision  ;  without  the  clear  and  single  eye  of 
conscience  full  of  light ;  and  therefore  without  the  resolute 
and  hardy  will  of  one  who  plainly  sees  what  he  is  to  avoid 
and  what  attain?  There  is  a  remarkable  intellectual  sub- 
tlety engaged  now-a-days  in  perplexing  men's  moral  con- 
victions. On  the  one  hand,  there  is  the  celebrated  doctrine 
of  happiness,  ingeniously  spun  into  a  logical  texture,  to  en- 
tangle those  who  are  neither  fine  enough  to  pass  through 
its  meshes,  nor  strong  enough  to  rend  them  :  —  the  doc- 
trine which  assures  you  that  enjoyment  is  the  great  end  of 
existence,  and  is  the  only  real  element  of  worth  in  the  ob- 
jects of  our  choice.  Of  this  I  will  say  no  more  at  present, 
than  that  it  plainly  makes  all  duty  a  matter  of  taste,  and 
reduces  the  distinction  between  evil  and  good  to  the  differ- 
ence between  pills  and  peaches  :  and  that  it  puts  an  end  to 
the  spirit  of  moral  combat  in  human  life,  and  metamor- 
phoses the  "good  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ"  into  one  knows 
not  what  strange  sort  of  mock-heroic  insincerity.  At  the 
feet  of  Epicurus  a  man  must  needs  lay  the  Christian  armor 
down  :  for  one  can  hardly  fancy  the  most  logical  of  mortals 


340  THE   GOOD    SOLDIER   OF   JESUS   CHRIST. 

tying  on  a  breastplate  of  faith,  seeking  the  battle-field,  and 
fighting  —  to  he  happy.  But  there  is  a  more  insidious  doc- 
trine than  this,  largely  infused,  from  the  philosophy  of  a 
neighboring  country,  into  the  literature  of  the  age  ;  a  doc- 
trine not  of  the  appetites,  but  of  the  imagination  ;  not  the 
utilitarian,  but  the  assthetic,  contrary  of  the  true  faith  of 
duty.  This  would  persuade  us,  that  the  moral  faculty  is  all 
very  well  as  one  of  the  elements  of  human  nature ;  is  highly 
respectable  in  its  proper  place  among  the  rest,  and  could  not 
be  absent  without  leaving  a  grievous  gap,  interruptive  of 
the  symmetry  of  the  man :  but  that  it  must  aspire  to  no  more 
than  this  modest  participation  with  its  companions  in  the 
perfection  of  our  being ;  that  it  must  not  presume  to  meddle 
with  what  does  not  belong  to  it,  or  refuse  to  make  liberal 
concessions  to  the  demands  of  beauty,  expediency  and  self- 
love  ;  and  that  it  would  be  very  narrow-minded,  or,  in  fash- 
ionable phrase,  very  one-sided^  to  try  every  thing  before  the 
tribunal  of  this  solitary  power.  Here  also,  only  under  more 
artful  disguise,  is  a  complete  denial  of  all  responsibility. 
Something,  it  is  true,  appears  to  be  allowed  to  conscience ;  a 
part  is  given  it  to  play  ;  and  the  point  professedly  disputed 
is  not  its  existence  with  an  appropriate  function,  but  its  ex- 
clusive pretensions  and  absolute  authority.  Unhappily, 
however,  when  this  much  is  discarded,  it  is  only  in  semblance 
that  any  thing  remains.  A  moral  faculty  with  a  merely  con- 
current jurisdiction,  or  from  whose  decisions  there  is  some 
appeal,  is  a  palpable  self-contradiction.  As  well  might  we 
propose  to  frame  a  government  without  any  one  highest. 
Conscience  is  authority,  —  divine  authority,  —  universal  au- 
thority ;  or  it  is  nothing.  It  is  a  right-royal  power,  that 
cannot  stoop  to  serve :  dethrone  it,  and  it  dies.  Not  even 
can  it  consent  to  be  acknowledged  as  a  "citizen-king," 
chosen  by  the  suffrages  of  equals,  open  to  their  criticism, 
and  removable  at  their  pleasure.  Either  it  must  be  owned 
as  bearing  a  sacred  and  underived  sovereignty,  against 
which  argument  is  impiety,  and  dreams  of   redress  incur 


THE   GOOD    SOLDIER   OF   JESUS    CHRIST.  341 

the  penalties  of  treason ;  or  it  will  decline  the  earthly 
sceptre  and  retire  to  heaven.  It  reigns  not  by  the  ac- 
quiescent will  of  other  powers,  but  is  supreme  by  nature 
over  all  will :  nor  rules  according  to  any  given  law,  being 
itself  the  fountain  of  all  law,  the  guardian  of  order,  the 
promulgator  of  right.  Its  prerogatives  are  penetrating  and 
paramount,  like  God.  In  the  noble  words  of  an  old  writer, 
"  Of  (moral)  Law  there  can  be  no  less  acknowledged,  than 
that  her  seat  is  the  bosom  of  God,  her  voice  the  harmony 
of  the  world :  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth  do  her  homage, 
the  very  least  as  feeling  her  care,  the  greatest  as  not  ex- 
empted from  her  power :  both  angels  and  men,  and  creat- 
ures of  what  condition  soever,  though  each  in  different 
sort  and  manner,  yet  all  with  uniform  consent,  admiring 
her  as  the  mother  of  their  peace  and  joy."* 

Let  none  then  prevail  with  us  to  think,  that  there  is  any 
period  of  life,  or  any  sphere  of  our  activity,  or  any  hour  of 
our  rest,  which  can  escape  the  range  of  right  and  wrong, 
and  be  secluded  from  the  eye  of  God.  Not  that  we  need 
grow  stiff  with  the  posture  of  unnatural  vigilance,  or  assume 
the  circumspection  of  a  scrupulous  and  anxious  mind ;  that 
would  only  show  that  the  formal  and  obedient  will  was  yet 
hard  and  dry  ;  that  it  was  chiselled  still  into  fitting  shapes 
by  the  severe  tool  of  care,  instead  of  flowing  down  into  the 
graceful  moulds  of  a  loving  and  trustful  -  heart.  The  rule 
of  a  divine  spirit  over  our  whole  nature  is,  in  truth,  of  all 
things  the  most  natural ;  natural  as  the  blossom  that  crowns 
the  tree,  without  which  it  would  miss  half  its  beauty,  and 
all  its  fruit.  Nothing  can  be  more  offensive  to  a  good  mind 
than  the  eagerness  to  claim,  for  some  portions  of  our  time, 
a  kind  of  holiday-escape  from  the  presence  of  duty  and  the 
consecration  of  pure  affections ;  to  thrust  off  all  noble 
thoughts  and  sacred  influences  into  the  most  neglected 
corner  of  existence ;  and  drive  away  religion,  as  if  it  were 
a  haggard  necromancer  that  must  some  time  come,  instead 
*  Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity  :  end  of  B.  I. 


342  THE   GOOD   SOLDIER    OF   JESUS    CHRIST. 

of  a  guardian-angel  that  must  never  go.  It  were  shameful 
to  sanction  the  low-minded  sentiment  which  so  often  says 
of  early  life,  that  it  is  the  time  for  enjoyment,  and  makes 
this  an  excuse  for  dispensing  with  every  thing  else,  and 
declining  all  demands  upon  the  hardness  of  the  "good 
soldier  of  Jesus  Christ."  According  to  the  canons  of  this 
wretched  criticism,  life  would  have  no  secret  unity  :  it 
would  be  no  sacred  epic,  sung  throughout  by  any  constant 
inspiration  ;  but  a  monster  of  incongruity ;  its  first  volume, 
a  jest-book ;  its  second,  a  table  of  interest ;  and  its  last,  a 
mixture  of  the  satire  and  the  liturgy.  For  my  own  part,  I 
can  form  no  more  odious  image  of  human  life,  than  a  youth 
of  levity  and  pleasure,  followed  by  a  maturity  and  age  of 
severity  and  pietism.  Both  sights,  in  this  succession,  are 
alike  deplorable :  a  young  soul  without  wonder,  without 
reverence,  without  tenderness,  without  inspiration :  with 
superficial  mirth,  and  deep  indifference :  standing  on  the 
threshold  of  life's  awful  temple,  with  easy  smile,  without 
uncovered  head,  or  bended  knee,  or  breathless  listening !  Is 
that  the  time,  do  you  say,  for  enjoyment?  Yes;  —  and  for 
enthusiasm,  for  conviction,  for  depths  of  affection,  and  de- 
votedness  of  will :  and  if  there  be  no  tints  of  heaven  in  that 
morning  haze  of  life,  it  will  be  vain  to  seek  them  in  the 
staring  light  of  the  later  noon.  And  therefore  is  that  other 
sight  most  questionable,  of  religion  becoming  conspicuous 
first  in  mid-life,  and  presenting  itself  as  the  mere  precipitate 
from  the  settling  of  the  young  blood.  Every  one  may  have 
noticed  examples  of  men,  long  spending  their  best  powers, 
the  mellow  heart,  the  supple  thought,  the  agile  will,  in  the 
service  of  themselves,  —  at  length,  with  the  retreating  juices 
of  nature  and  sin,  baked  by  the  drying  heats  of  life  into  the 
professing  saint;  —  like  the  rotting-tree,  simply  decaying 
into  the  grotesque  semblance  of  something  human  or  ghostly, 
which  is  no  product  of  its  proper  vitality,  and  does  but 
mimic  other  natures  when  the  functions  have  departed  from 
its    own.     Who   can  avoid  looking. on   such  cases  with    a 


THE   GOOD   SOLDIER   OF   JESUS   CHRIST.  343 

somewhat  suspicious  eye?  If  indeed  the  youth  has  been 
intrinsically  noble,  it  is  not  for  us  to  deny,  that  some  under- 
current thence,  after  seeming  loss  in  dark  caverns  of  the 
earth,  may  reappear  to  fertilize  the  meadows,  and  raise  the 
sweet  after-grass  of  autumnal  life.  But  it  is  not  often  that 
truth  can  allow  the  interpretation  thus  suggested  by  hope 
and  charity.  Usually,  the  religion  thus  embraced  is  taken 
up,  less  because  it  is  heartily  believed  and  trusted,  than 
because  a  distrust  has  arisen  of  every  thing  else.  It  is  the 
penance  of  an  uneasy  mind ;  —  a  memorial  for  pardon  ad- 
dressed as  to  an  enemy,  not  the  quest  of  shelter  with  an 
Eternal  Friend.  Vainly  shall  we  attempt  to  get  the  wages 
of  a  campaign  that  has  not  been  fought,  and  seize  the  crown 
of  mastery,  without  having  "contended  lawfully."  The 
repose  of  honest  victory  can  only  follow  the  strife  of  noble 
conflict :  and  the  true  peace  of  God  is  the  appointed  pension 
of  "  the  good  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ " 


XXXIV. 
THE  REALM   OF  ORDER. 


1  Corinthians  xiv.  33. 

god  18  not  the  author  op  confusion,  but  of  peace,  as  in  all 
churches  of  the  saints. 

In  the  production  and  preservation  of  order,  all  men  recog- 
nize something  that  is  sacred.  We  have  an  intuitive  con- 
viction that  it  is  not,  at  bottom,  the  earliest  condition  of 
things;  that  whatever  is,  rose  out  of  some  dead  ground- 
work of  confusion  and  nothingness,  and  incessantly  gravi- 
tates thitherwards  again  ;  and  that,  without  a  positive  energy 
of  God,  no  universe  could  have  emerged  from  tlie  void,  or 
be  suspended  out  of  it  for  an  hour.  There  is  no  task  more 
indubitably  divine  than  the  creation  of  beauty  out  of  chaos, 
the  imposition  of  law  upon  the  lawless,  and  the  setting  forth 
of  times  and  seasons  from  the  stagnant  and  eternal  night. 
And  so,  the  Bible  opens  with  a  work  of  arrangement,  and 
closes  with  one  of  restoration;  looks  round  the  ancient 
firmament  at  first,  and  sees  that  all  is  good,  and  surveys  the 
new  heavens  at  last,  to  make  sure  that  evil  is  no  more.  Far 
back  in  the  old  eternity,  it  ushers  us  into  God's  presence : 
and  he  is  engaged  in  dividing  the  light  from  the  darkness, 
and  shaping  the  orbs  that  determine  days  and  years  ;  turn- 
ing the  vapors  of  the  abyss  into  the  sweet  breath  of  life, 
teaching  the  little  grass  to  grow,  and  trusting  the  forest  tree 
with  the  seed  that  is  in  itself,  to  be  punctually  dropped 
upon  the  earth ;  filling  the  mountain  slope,  the  sedgy  plain, 
the  open  air,  the  hidden  deep,  with  various  creatures  kept 


THE   REALM   OF    ORDER.  345 

by  happy  instincts  within  the  limits  of  his  will ;  and  setting 
over  all,  in  likeness  of  himself,  the  adapting  intellect,  the 
affectionate  spirit,  and  mysterious  conscience,  of  lordly  and 
reflective  man.  The  birth  of  order  was  the  first  act  of  God, 
who  rested  not  till  all  was  blessed  and  sanctified.  "  And  far 
forward  in  the  eternity  to  come,  we  are  brought  before  his 
face  again  for  judgment.  The  spoiling  of  his  works,  the 
wild  wandering  from  his  will,  he  will  bear  no  more :  the 
disorder  that  has  gathered  together,  shall  be  rectified  :  he 
will  again  divide  the  darkness  from  the  light ;  and  confusion 
and  wrong,  —  all  that  hurts  and  destroys,  —  shall  be  thrust 
into  unknown  depths ;  while  wisdom  and  holiness  shall  be 
as  the  brightness  of  the  firmament  and  as  the  stars  for  ever 
and  ever.  As  it  was  when  he  was  Alpha,  so  will  it  be  when 
he  is  Omega.  He  is  one  that  "  loveth  pureness  "  still :  and 
the  stream  of  Providence,  —  the  river  that  went  out  of 
Eden,  —  however  foul  with  the  taint  of  evil  while  it  takes 
its  course  through  human  history,  shall  become  the  river 
of  the  water  of  life,  clear  as  crystal,  that  nurtures  the  secret 
root  of  all  holy  and  immortal  things. 

This  divine  regard  for  order  proceeds  from  an  attribute 
in  which  we  also  are  made  to  participate,  and  which  puts 
us  into  awful  kindred  with  God's  perfections.  Intelligent 
free-will,  —  a  self-determining  mind,  —  is  the  only  true,  origi- 
nating cause  of  which  we  can  even  conceive ;  the  sole 
power  capable  of  giving  law  where  there  was  none  before,  and 
of  creating  the  necessity  by  which  it  is  thenceforth  obeyed. 
There  was  a  will^  before  there  was  a  must,  Nothing  else, 
we  feel  assured,  could  avail,  amid  a  boundless  primeval  un- 
settledness,  to  mark  out  a  certain  fixed  method  of  existence 
and  no  other,  and  make  it  to  be ;  could  draw  forth  an  actual, 
defined,  and  amenable  universe  from  the  sphere  of  infinite 
possibilities.  The  indeterminate,  the  chaotic,  lies  in  our 
thought  behind  and  around  the  determinate  and  constituted ; 
and  to  sketch  a  positive  system  and  bid  its  vivid  lines  of 
order  shine  on  the  dark  canvas  of  negation,  is  the  special 


346  THE  REALM  OF  ORDER. 

office  of  the  free  self-moving  spirit,  whereby  God  lifts  us  up 
above  nature  into  the  image  of  himself.  Hence  we  too,  in 
proportion  as  we  a])proach  him,  shall  put  our  hand  to  a  like 
task ;  shall  organize  the  loose  materials  that,  touched  by  a 
creative 'will,  may  cease  to  be  without  form  and  void; 
shall  set  out  our  expanse  of  years  into  periods  ruled  by  the 
lights  of  duty,  and  refr^hed  by  the  shades  of  prayer  ;  shall 
mould  every  shapeless  impulse,  subdue  every  rugged  diffi- 
culty, fill  every  empty  space  of  opportunity  with  good,  and 
breathe  a  living  soul  into  the  very  dust  and  clod  of  our 
existence.  As  "  God  is  not  the  author  of  confusion,  but  of 
peace,"  so  the  service  of  God  infuses  a  spirit  of  method  and 
proportion  into  the  outward  life  and  the  inward  mind ;  and 
pure  religion  is  a  principle  of  universal  order. 

No  two  things  indeed  can  be  more  at  variance  with  each 
other  than  a  devout  and  an  unregulated  life.  Devotion  t* 
holy  regulation,  guiding  hand  and  heart ;  a  surrender  of 
self-will, — that  main  source  of  uncertainty  and  caprice, — 
and  a  loving  subordination  to  the  only  rule  that  cannot 
change.  Devotion  is  the  steady  attraction  of  the  soul  tow- 
ards one  luminous  object,  discerned  across  the  passionless 
infinite,  and  drawing  thoughts,  deeds,  affections,  into  an 
orbit  silent,  seasonal,  and  accurately  true.  In  a  mind  sub- 
mitted to  the  touch  of  God,  there  is  a  certain  rhythm  of 
music,  which,  however  it  may  swell  into  the  thunder  or  sink 
into  a  sigh,  has  still  a  basis  of  clear  unbroken  melody.  The 
discordant  starts  of  passion,  the  whimsical  snatches  of  appe- 
tite, the  inarticulate  whinings  of  discontent,  are  never 
heard :  and  the  spirit  is  like  an  organ,  delivered  from  the 
tumbling  of  chance  pressures  on  its  keys,  and  given  over  to 
the  hand  of  a  divine  skill.  Nay,  so  inexorable  is  the  de- 
mand of  religion  for  order,  that  it  shrinks  from  any  one 
allowed  irregularity,  as  the  musician  from  a  constant  mis- 
take in  the  performance  of  some  heavenly  strain.  Its  per- 
petual effort  is  to  prevail  over  all  things  loose  and  turbid  ; 
to  swallow  up  the  elements  of  confusion  in  human  life ;  and 


THE  REALM   OF   ORDER.  347 

banish  chance  from  the  soul,  as  God  excludes  it  from  the 
universe.  It  is  quite  impossible  that  an  idle,  floating 
spirit  can  ever  look  with  clear  eye  to  God  ;  spreading  its 
miserable  anarchy  before  the  symmetry  of  the  creative 
Mind;  in  the  midst  of  a  disorderly  being,  that  has  neitlier 
centre  nor  circumference,  kneeling  beneath  the  glorious 
sky,  that  everywhere  has  both ;  and  from  a  life  that  is  all 
failure,  turning  to  the  Lord  of  the  silent  stars,  of  whose 
punctual  thought  it  is,  that  "  not  one  faileth."  The  heavens, 
with  their  everlasting  faithfulness,  look  down  on  no  sadder 
contradiction,  than  the  sluggard  and  the  slattern  at  their 
prayers. 

To  maintain  the  sacred  governance  of  life  is  to  recognize 
and  preserve  the  due  rank  of  all  things  within  us  and  with- 
out. For  there  is  a  system  of  ranks  extending  through 
the  spiritual  world  of  which  we  form  a  part.  The  faculties 
and  affections  of  the  single  mind  are  no  democracy  of  prin- 
ciples, each  of  which,  in  the  determinations  of  the  will,  is 
to  have  equal  suffrage  with  the  rest ;  but  an  orderly  series, 
in  which  every  member  has  a  right  divine  over  that  below. 
The  individuals  composing  the  communities  of  men  do  not 
arrange  themselves  into  a  dead  level  of  spirits,  in  which 
none  are  above  and  none  beneath  ;  but  there  are  centres 
of  natural  majesty  that  break  up  the  mass  into  groups  and 
proportions  that  you  cannot  change.  And  man  himself,  by 
the  highest  will,  is  inserted  between  things  of  which  he  is 
lord,  and  obligations  which  he  must  serve.  In  short,  the 
hierarchy  of  nature  is  episcopalian  throughout :  and  in 
conforming  to  its  order,  the  active  part  of  our  duty  con- 
sists in  this :  that  we  must  rule  and  keep  under  our  hand 
whatever  is  beneath  us ;  assigning  to  every  thing  its  due 
place. 

The  whole  scheme  of  our  voluntary  actions,  all  that  we 
do  from  morning  to  night  of  every  day,  is  beyond  doubt 
entrusted  to  our  control.  No  power,  without  our  consent, 
can  share  the  monarchy  of  this  realm,  or  constrain  us  to  lift 


848  THE   REALM   OF   ORDER. 

a  hand  or  speak  a  word,  where  resolution  bids  us  be  still 
and  silent.  And  from  our  inmost  consciousness  we  do 
know,  that,  whenever  we  will,  we  can  niahe  ourselves  exe- 
cute whatever  we  approve,  and  strangle  in  its  birth  what- 
ever we  abhor.  To-morrow  morning,  if  you  choose  to  take 
up  a  spirit  of  such  power,  you  may  rise  like  a  soul  without 
a  past ;  fresh  for  the  future  as  an  Adam  untempted  yet ; 
disengaged  from  the  manifold  coil  of  willing  usage,  and 
with  every  link  of  guilty  habit  shaken  off.  I  know  indeed 
that  you  will  not;  that  no  man  ever  will;  but  the  hindrance 
is  with  yourself  alone.  The  coming  hours  are  open  yet,  — 
pure  and  spotless  receptacles  for  whatever  you  may  deposit 
there  ;  pledged  to  no  evil,  secure  of  no  good  ;  neither  mort- 
gaged to  greedy  passion,  nor  given  to  generous  toil.  There 
they  lie  in  non-existence  still ;  ready  to  be  organized  by  a 
creative  spirit  of  beauty,  or  made  foul  with  deformity  and 
waste.  Perhaps  it  is  this  thought,  this  secret  sense  of  moral 
contingency,  that  gives  to  so  simple  a  thing  as  the  beat  of 
a  pendulum,  or  the  forward  start  of  the  finger  on  the  dial,  a 
solemnity  beyond  expression.  The  gliding  heavens  are  less 
awful  at  midnight  than  the  ticking  clock.  Their  noiseless 
movement,  undivided,  serene,  and  everlasting,  is  as  the  flow 
of  divine  duration,  that  cannot  affect  the  place  of  the  eter- 
nal God.  But  these  sharp  strokes,  with  their  inexorably 
steady  intersections,  so  agree  with  our  successive  thoughts, 
that  they  seem  like  the  punctual  stops  counting  off  our  very 
souls  into  the  past ;  —  the  flitting  messengers  that  dip  for  a 
moment  on  our  hearts,  then  bear  the  pure  or  sinful  thing 
irrevocably  away;  —  light  with  mystic  hopes  as  they  arrive, 
charged  with  sad  realities  as  they  depart.  So  passes,  and 
we  cannot  stay  it,  our  only  portion  of  opportunity :  the 
fragments  of  that  blessed  chance  which  has  been  travelling 
to  us  from  all  eternity,  are  dropping  quickly  off.  Let  us 
start  up  and  live  :  here  come  the  moments  that  cannot  be 
had  again  ;  some  few  may  yet  be  filled  with  imperishable 
good. 


THE   REALM  OF  OKDER.  349 

There  is  no  conscious  power  like  that  which  a  wise  and 
Christian  heart  asserts,  when  resolved  to  absorb  the  dead 
matter  of  its  existence,  and  from  the  elements  of  former 
waste  and  decay  to  put  forth  a  new  and  vernal  life.  The 
accurate  economy  of  instants,  the  proportionate  distribution 
of  duties,  the  faithful  observance  of  law,  as  it  is  an  exercise 
of  strength,  so  gives  a  sense  of  strenuous  liberty.  Compared 
with  this,  how  poor  a  delusion  is  the  spurious  freedom  which 
is  the  idler's  boast !  He  says  that  he  has  his  time  at  his 
disposal :  but  in  truth,  he  is  at  the  disposal  of  his  time.  No 
novelty  of  the  moment  canvasses  him  in  vain :  any  chance 
suggestion  may  have  him ;  whiffed  as  he  is  hither  and 
thither  like  a  stray  feather  on  the  wandering  breeze.  The 
true  stamp  of  manhood  is  not  on  him,  and  therefore  the 
image  of  godship  has  faded  away:  for  he  is  lord  of  nothing, 
not  even  of  himself ;  his  will  is  ever  waiting  to  be  tempted, 
and  conscience  is  thrust  out  among  the  mean  rabble  of  can- 
didates that  court  it.  The  wing  of  resolution,  mighty  to 
lift  us  nearer  God,  is  broken  quite,  and  there  is  nothing  to 
stay  the  downward  gravitation  of  a  nature  passive  and  heavy 
too.  And  so,  first  a  weak  affection  for  persons  supplants 
the  sense  of  right :  to  be  itself,  in  turn,  destroyed  by  a 
baser  appetite  for  things.  This  woful  declension  is  the 
natural  outgoing  of  those  who  presume  to  try  an  unregu- 
lated life.  A  systematic  organization  of  the  personal  hab- 
its, devised  in  moments  of  devout  and  earnest  reason,  is  a 
necessary  means,  amid  the  fluctuations  of  the  spirit,  of 
giving  to  the  better  mind  its  rightful  authority  over  the 
worse.  Those  only  will  neglect  it,  who  either  do  not  know 
their  weakness,  or  have  lost  all  healthy  reliance  on  their 
strength. 

It  is  a  part  then  of  the  faithfulness  and  freedom  of  a 
holy  mind,  to  keep  the  whole  range  of  outward  action  under 
severe  control :  to  administer  the  hours  in  full  view  of  the 
vigilant  police  of  conscience;  and  to  introduce  even  into 
the   lesser  materials  of  life  the   precision  and   concinnity 


350  THE  REALM  OF   ORDER. 

which  are  the  natural  symbols  of  a  pure  and  constant  spirit. 
And  it  belongs  to  the  humility  of  a  devout  heart,  not  to 
trust  itself  to  the  uncertain  ebb  and  flow  of  thought,  and 
float  opportunity  away  on  the  giddy  waters  of  inconstancy ; 
but  to  arrange  a  method  of  life  in  the  hour  of  high  purpose 
and  clear  insight,  and  then  compel  the  meaner  self  to  work 
out  the  prescription  of  the  nobler.  Yet  this,  after  all, 
though  an  essential  check  to  our  instability,  is  but  the 
beginning  of  wisdom.  The  mere  distribution  of  action  in 
quantity,  however  well  proportioned,  does  not  fulfil  the 
requisites  of  a  Christian  order.  This  surveyor's  work, — 
this  partitioning  out  the  superficies  of  life,  and  marking  off 
the  orchard  and  the  field,  the  meadow  and  the  grove, —  will 
make  no  grass  to  grow,  will  open  no  blossom  and  mature 
no  seed.  The  seasonal  culture  of  the  soul  requires  all  this ; 
yet  may  yield  poor  produce,  when  this  is  done.  Without 
the  deeper  symmetry  of  the  spirit,  the  harmonious  working 
of  living  powers  there,  the  boundaries  of  action,  however 
neat,  will  be  but  a  void  framework,  enclosing  barrenness 
and  sand.  Despise  not  the  ceremonial  of  the  moral  life ;  it 
is  our  needful  speech  and  articulation  ;  but  oh !  mistake  it 
not  for  the  true  and  infinite  worship  that  should  breathe 
through  it.  Mere  mechanism,  however  perfect,  has  this 
misfortune,  that  it  cannot  set  fast  its  own  loose  screws,  but 
rather  shakes  them  into  more  frightful  confusion ;  till  the 
power,  late  so  smooth,  works  only  crash  and  ruin,  and  goes 
headlong  back  to  chaos.  And  so  it  is  where  there  is  nothing 
profounder  than  the  systematizing  faculty  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  a  man's  life.  Destitute  of  adaptive  and  restorative 
energy,  with  no  perception  of  a  spiritual  order  that  may 
remain  above  disturbance  and  express  itself  through  ob- 
structions all  the  more,  interruptions  bewilder  and  upset 
him.  Ill  health  in  himself  or  the  afflictions  of  others,  that 
stop  his  projects  and  give  him  pause  by  a  touch  on  his 
affections,  irritate  and  weary  him ;  he  grows  dizzy  with  the 
inroads  on  his  schemes,  gives  up  the  count  so  hopefully 


THE   REALM   OF   ORDER.  351 

begun,  and  runs  down  in  rapid  discords.  The  soul  of 
Christian  order  has  in  it  something  quite  different  from 
this ;  more  like  the  blessed  force  of  nature  that  consumes 
its  withered  leaves  as  punctually  as  they  fall,  and  so  makes 
the  spread  of  decay  a  thing  impossible  :  that  has  so  un- 
wearied an  appetite  for  the  creation  of  beauty  and  pro- 
ductiveness, that  it  makes  no  complaint  of  rottenness  and 
death,  but  draws  from  them  the  sap  of  life,  and  weaves 
again  the  foliage  and  the  fruit.  No  less  a  vital  spontaneity 
than  this  is  needed  in  the  Christian  soul ;  for  in  human  life, 
as  in  external  nature,  the  elements  of  corruption  and  dis- 
order are  always  accumulating ;  and  unless  they  are  to  breed 
pestilence,  must  be  kept  down  and  effectually  absorbed. 
As  in  science,  so  in  practical  existence,  our  theory  or  ideal 
must  ever  be  framed  upon  assumptions  only  partially  true. 
The  conditions  required  for  its  fulfilment  will  never  be 
present  all  at  once  and  all  alone:  so  that  the  realization  will 
be  but  approximate ;  and  a  constant  tension  of  the  soul  is 
needed  to  press  it  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  ultimate  design. 
For  want  of  a  religious  source,  an  exact  apparent  order  in 
the  life  may  coexist  with  an  essential  disorder  secreted 
within.  Are  we  not  conscious  that  so  it  is,  whenever  the 
toil  of  our  hands,  though  punctually  visited,  receives  no 
consent  of  our  hearts ;  when  the  spirit  flies  with  heavy  wing 
from  reach  to  reach  of  time,  and,  like  Noah's  dove,  seeing 
only,  wave  after  wave  of  a  dreary  flood,  finds  no  rest  for  the 
sole  of  its  foot,  till  it  gets  back  to  the  ark  of  its  narrow 
comforts?  Is  it  not  a  plain  inversion  of  the  true  order  of 
things,  when  we  do  our  work  for  the  sake  of  the  following 
rest,  instead  of  accepting  our  rest  as  the  preparative  for 
work  ?  And  while  this  continues  to  be  the  case,  there  will 
be  a  hidden  aching,  a  dark  corroding  speck  within  the  soul, 
which  no  outward  method  or  proportion  can  ever  charm 
away.  Nor  can  the  precision  of  the  will  be  even  sustained 
at  all  without  the  symmetry  of  the  affections.  As  well 
might  you  think  to  set  your  broken  compass  right  by  hand  : 


352  THE   REALM   OF   ORDER. 

if  it  be  foul  and  stiff,  swinging  and  trembling  no  more  in 
obedience  to  its  mysterious  attraction,  its  blessed  guidance 
is  gone ;  and  after  the  first  straight  line  of  your  direction, 
you  sail  upon  the  chances  of  destruction. 

To  prevent  this  evil,  of  method  just  creeping  up  the  lower 
part  of  life,  and.  passing  no  farther,  no  positive  rule,  from 
th§  very  nature  of  the  case,  can  well  be  given.  We  can 
only  say  that,  besides  subjecting  whatever  is  beneath  us, 
there  is  also  this  passive  part  of  Christian  order,  that  we 
must  surrender  ourselves  entirely  to  what  is  above  us ;  and 
having  put  all  lesser  things  into  their  place,  we  must  then 
take  and  keep  our  own.  Could  indeed  this  proportion  of 
the  affections  invariably  remain,  it  would  supersede  all  our 
mechanism,  and  take  care  of  the  outward  harmony:  and 
we  should  have  no  need  to  apply  the  rules  of  a  Franklin 
to  the  spirit  of  a  Christ.  But  even  short  of  this  blessed 
emancipation,  we  should  rise  into  a  higher  atmosphere; 
escaping  the  wretched  thraldom  of  reluctant  duties;  and 
should  yield  a  free  consent,  through  love,  to  that  which  else 
were  irksome ;  quietly  depositing  ourselves  on  every  work 
that  brings  its  sacred  claim,  and  moving  in  it,  instead  of 
writhing  to  get  beyond  it.  They  tell  you  that  habit  recon- 
ciles you  in  time  to  many  unwelcome  things.  Let  us  not 
trust  to  this  alone.  Custom  indeed  sweetens  the  rugged 
lot  when  the  cheerful  soul  is  in  it :  it  does  but  embitter  it 
the  more,  when  the  soul  stai/s  out  of  it.  But  when  harsh- 
nesses are  borne,  and  even  spontaneously  embraced,  for  the 
sake  of  God  who  hints  them  to  our  conscience,  a  perfect 
agi-eement  ensues  between  the  spirit  and  the  letter  of  our 
life.  We  feel  no  weariness  ;  delivered  now  from  the  intoler- 
able burthen  of  flagging  affections.  We  are  disturbed  by 
no  ambitions ;  conscious  of  no  jealousies  of  other  men ;  for 
competition  has  no  place  in  things  divine :  and  even  in  lower 
matters,  it  is,  to  the  thoughtful  and  devout,  but  a  quiet 
interrogation  of  Providence  ;  and  the  true  heart  that  prefers 
the  question  cannot  be  discontented  with  the  answer.     We 


THE   REALM  OF  ORDER.  353 

cease  to  desire  a  change :  we  feel  that  life  affords  no  time 
for  restlessness  ;  that  in  persistency  is  our  only  hope  :  and 
a  blessed  conservatism  of  spirit  comes  over  us,  that  claims 
nothing  but  simple  leave  to  go  on  serving  and  loving  still. 
And  so  existence,  to  the  devout,  becomes,  not  confused,  but 
peaceful,  like  a  service  in  the  churches  of  the  saints. 


28 


XXXV. 

CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  MERIT. 


Luke  xvn.  10. 

so  LIKEWISE  TE,  WHEN  TE  SHALL  HAVE  DONE  ALL  THOSE  THINGS  WHICH 
ARE  COMMANDED  YOU,  SAY,  "  WE  ARE  UNPROFITABLE  SERVANTS;  WB 
HAVE  DONE  THAT   WHICH   WA^  OUR  DUTY  TO   DO." 

To  a  thoughtful  interpreter  of  human  nature,  nothing  so 
plainly  reveals  the  hidden  principle  of  a  man's  life,  as  the 
estimation  in  which  he  holds  himself.  Whether  the  stand- 
ard which  guides  him  be  conventional,  moral,  or  divine ; 
whether  the  invisible  presence  that  haunts  him  be  that  of 
the  world's  opinion,  or  his  own  self-witness,  or  the  eye  of 
God,  —  may  be  seen  in  the  contented  self-delusion,  or  in- 
telligent self-knowledge,  or  noble  self-forgetfulness,  which 
reveal  themselves  through  his  natural  language  and  de- 
meanor. Too  often  you  meet  with  a  man  who  manifestly 
looks  at  himself  with  the  eyes  of  others ;  and  those  too,  not 
the  wise  who  are  above  him,  but  the  associates  on  the  same 
level  or  the  inferiors  beneath  it,  to  whom  he  may  be  sup- 
posed an  object  of  conspicuous  attention.  He  stands  well 
with  himself,  because  he  stands  well  with  them :  and  nothing 
would  make  him  angry  with  himself,  except  the  forfeiture 
of  his  position  among  them.  Their  expectations  from  him 
being  satisfied,  or  somewhat  more,  he  thinks  his  work  is 
done,  and  turns  loose  into  a  holiday  life,  to  do  as  he  likes 
at  his  own  unlicensed  will.  Their  sentiments  are  the  mirror 
by  which  he  dresses  up  his  life ;  as  his  self-complacency  is 
but  the  reflection  of  their  smiles,  his  self-reproach  is  but,  an 
imitation  of  their  frowns,  —  mere  regret  for  error,  not  re- 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  MERIT.  355 

morse  for  wrong;  —  overheard  in  the  cry  of  vexation,  "Fool 
that  I  am!"  not  in  the  whisper  of  penitence,  "God  be 
merciful  to  me  a  sinner ! "  He  every  way  impresses  you 
with  the  conviction  that,  if  nothing  were  demanded  of  him, 
nothing  would  be  given;  that  he  simply  comes  into  the 
terms  imposed  by  men  as  conditions  of  peace  and  good 
fellowship ;  and,  did  all  men  resemble  him,  the  cynic's 
theory  would  be  not  far  wrong,  that  morality  is  but  the 
conciliation  of  opinion,  and  society  a  company  for  mutual 
protection. 

However,  if  all  men  were  such  as  he,  and  brought  no 
strictly  moral  element  into  human  affairs,  it  is  plain  that 
this  much-vaunted  power  of  "  public  opinion  "  could  never 
get  formed.  Till  somebody  has  a  conscience,  nobody  can 
feel  a  law.  Accordingly,  we  everywhere  meet  with  a  higher 
order  of  men,  who  not  only  comprehend  the  wishes,  but  re- 
spect the  rights,  of  others  :  who  are  ruled,  not  by  expectation 
without,  but  by  the  sense  of  obligation  within  :  who  do,  not 
the  agreeable,  but  the  just;  and,  even  amid  the  storm  of 
public  rage,  can  stand  fast,  with  rioted  foot  and  airy  brow, 
like  the  granite  mountain  in  the  sea.  Noble  however  as 
this  foundation  of  uprightness  always  is,  there  may  arise 
from  it  a  self-estimate  too  proud  and  firm.  If  the  stern 
consciousness  of  right  have  no  softening  of  human  affec- 
tion and  kindling  of  diviner  aspiration,  it  will  give  the  lofty 
sense  of  personal  merits  that  makes  the  stoic,  and  misses 
the  saint.  To  walk  beneath  the  porch  is  still  infinitely 
less  than  to  kneel  before  the  cross.  We  do  nothing  well, 
till  we  learn  our  worth  ;  nothing  best,  till  we  forget  it. 
And  this  will  not  be  till,  besides  being  built  into  the  real 
veracious  laws  of  this  world,  we  are  also  conscious  of  the 
inspection  of  another :  till  we  live,  not  only  fairly  among 
equals,  but  submissively  under  the  Most  High ;  and  while 
casting  the  shadow  of  a  good  life  on  the  scene  below,  lie  in 
the  light  of  vaster  spheres  above.  Virtue,  feeling  its  deep  base 
in  earth,  lifts  its  head  aloft :  sanctity,  conscious  of  its  far-off 


356  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE   OF   MERIT. 

glimpse  at  heaven,  bends  it  low.  And  yet,  outwardly,  they 
are  not  different,  but  the  same :  one  visible  character  may 
correspond  with  either  ;  only  standing  amid  relations  incom- 
plete in  the  one  case,  completed  in  the  other.  They  are  but 
as  the  different  aspects  of  the  granite  isle  of  which  we 
spake.  Let  clouds  roof  out  the  heaven  and  shut  a  darkness 
in,  and  its  gray  crags  look  down.,  with  the  grandeur  of  a 
gloomy  monarch,  sheltering  the  thunder  and  defying  the 
flood.  Sweep  the  rack  away,  and  throw  open  the  hemi- 
sphere of  morning  air,  and  it  lies  low  in  the  soft  light  and 
sleeps  with  upturned  gaze,  like  a  sunny  child  of  deep  and 
sky,  cradled  on  the  summer  sea. 

How  is  it  that  minds,  equally  engaged  in  the  outward  ser- 
vice of  duty,  think  of  themselves  so  differently  ?  Whence 
the  self-reliance,  bordering  on  self-exaggeration,  of  a  Zeno, 
a  Franklin,  a  Bentham?  —  the  divine  humility  of  a  Pascal, 
a  Howard,  a  Channing,  and  of  the  Master  whose  lineaments 
they  variously  reflect  ?  The  answer  will  present  itself  spon- 
taneously, if  we  inquire  into  the  true  doctrine  of  merit. 
This  word,  which  has  its  equivalent  in  every  language, 
expresses  a  meaning  familiar,  I  suppose,  to  all  men ;  and 
by  referring  to  a  few  common  modes  of  speech  and  thought, 
the  contents  of  that  meaning  may  be  unfolded  and  de- 
fined. 

There  is  no  merit  in  paying  one's  debts.  To  make  such 
an  act  a  ground  of  praise  infallibly  betrays  a  base  mind 
and  a  dishonest  community.  This  cannot  well  be  denied  by 
any  clear-thoughted  man,  free  from  the  influence  of  pas- 
sion. Whatever  be  the  practice  of  society  with  respect  to 
the  insolvent,  surely  it  is  a  mean  perversion  of  the  natural 
moral  sense  to  imagine  that  his  temporary  inability,  or  length 
of  delay,  can  cancel  one  iota  of  his  obligation  :  these 
things  only  serve  to  increase  its  stringency;  tardy  repara- 
tion being  a  poor  substitute  for  punctual  fidelity.  I  am 
far  from  denying  that  circumstances  of  special  and  blame- 
less misfortune  may  justify  him  in  accepting  the  voluntary 


CHRISTIAN   DOCTRINE   OF   MERIT.  357 

mercy  of  friends  willing  to  "  forgive  him  all  that  debt." 
But  whoever  avails  himself  of  mere  legal  release  as  a  moral 
exemption,  is  a  candidate  for  infamy  in  the  eyes  of  all  un- 
corrupted.  men.  The  law  necessarily  interposes  to  put  a 
period  to  the  controversy  between  debtor  and  creditor,  and 
prohibit  the  further  struggle  between  the  arts  of  the  one 
and  the  cruelty  of  the  other:  but  it  cannot  annul  their 
moral  relation.  Obligation  cannot,  any  more  than  God, 
grow  old  and  die :  till  it  is  obeyed,  it  stops  in  the  present 
tense,  and  represents  the  eternal  now.  Time  can  wear  no 
duty  out.  Neglect  may  smother  it  out  of  sight ;  opportu- 
nity may  pass,  and  turn  it  from  our  guardian  angel  into  our 
haunting  fiend  :  but  while  it  yet  remains  possible,  it  clings 
to  our  identity,  and  refuses  to  let  us  go.  It  was  the  first 
sign  of  the  rich  publican's  change  from  the  heathen  to 
the  Christian  mind  that  he  "  restored  four-fold  "  the  gains 
that  were  not  his.  And  our  conversion  yet  remains  to  be 
wrought,  until,  instead  of  applauding  as  of  high  desert  the 
man  who  repairs  at  length  the  mischief  he  has  done,  we 
condemn  to  shame  every  one  who  can  buy  an  indulgence 
with  an  unpaid  debt. 

Again,  there  is  no  merit  in  speaking  or  acting  the  simple 
truth  ;  in  keeping  one's  promissory  word,  and  doing  one's 
stipulated  work.  In  this  there  is  no  more  than  all  men  are 
entitled  to  expect  from  us.  It  is  their  manifest  right :  and 
if,  instead  of  respecting  its  demands,  we  give  them  false- 
hoods with  our  lips  and  life,  we  not  merely  lose  all  claim  to 
their  praise,  but,  sinking  far  from  innocence,  become  ob- 
noxious to  their  reproach.  From  this  rule  there  are,  no 
doubt,  many  apparent  departures  in  the  practical  conduct  of 
human  affairs;  and  we  often  make  it  a  theme  for  public 
eulogy  that  a  citizen  has  lived  among  us  with  unbroken 
pledge  and  faithful  achievement.  This,  however,  is  hardly 
an  example  of  the  strict  and  unmixed  judgment  of  con- 
science, but  rather  a  concession  from  that  pity  and  fear 
with  which  we  look  on  human  nature  tried  with  so  long  a 


858  CHRISTIAN    DOCTRINE  OF  MERIT. 

Strife.  It  springs  up  on  the  retrospect  of  an  entire  life  with 
its  visible  temptations  prostrated  and  its  strength  trium- 
phant ;  and  would  be  put  to  silence  by  a  single  instance  of 
evident  bad  faith.  Moreover,  in  cases  of  such  unviolated 
truth,  there  is  always  something  more  than  simple  absti- 
nence from  wrong.  They  imply,  by  their  very  persistency, 
a  force  of  character,  which  cannot  have  spent  itself  in  mere 
standing  still,  however  firm.  The  man  who,  under  all 
deflecting  importunities,  can  keep  an  immovable  footing 
against  the  wrong,  has  a  life  within  him  that,  when  the  as- 
sault is  over,  will  push  on  the  victories  of  right :  and  we 
justly  accept  the  negative  strength,  as  symptomatic  of  the 
positive  power  of  conscience.  On  this  account  it  is  that  we 
honor  him  who  never  lies,  nor  cheats,  nor  stoops  to  mean 
evasions ;  not  that  it  would  be  otherwise  than  shameful  if 
he  did ;  but  to  be  throughout  clear  of  all  such  shame  is  the 
sign  that  he  has  not  a  passive,  but  a  productive,  soul :  and 
we  praise  him  for  what  he  is,  rather  than  for  what  he  is 
not. 

Once  more :  there  is  no  merit  in  restraining  the  appetites 
from  excess  ;  in  the  avoidance  of  intemperance  and  waste ; 
in  freedom  from  wild  and  self-destructive  passions,  that  bear 
the  soul  away  on  a  whirlwind  it  cannot  rule.  We  expect 
of  every  man,  that  he  shall  remain  master  of  himself ;  and 
we  feel  that  he  does  not  reach  the  natural  level  of  his  hu- 
manity, unless  he  governs  what  he  knows  to  be  beneath 
him,  and,  as  "a  faithful  and  wise  steward,"  manifests  a 
moral  prudence  in  administering  the  domain  of  his  own 
spirit.  A  well-ordered  economy  of  the  personal  habits 
brings  so  evident  a  return  of  value  to  those  who  practise  it, 
and  is  so  fit  a  consequence  of  the  natural  rights  of  reason 
over  the  will,  that  it  is  rather  the  assumed  ground  and 
indispensable  condition,  than  the  actual  essence,  of  any 
excellence  we  can  honor  and  revere.  If  ever  we  bestow 
upon  it  more  than  a  cold  commendation,  it  is  in  cases  where 
it  may  be  taken  as  a  pledge  of  something  further,  that  does 


CHKISTIAN  DOCTRINE   OF  MERIT.  359 

not  directly  meet  the  eye :  where  it  appears,  for  instance, 
amid  examples  of  guilty  license,  and  inducements  to  a  low 
and  lax  career  ;  and  can  only  have  grown  up  by  the  triumph 
of  pure  and  divine  energy  within,  under  the  obstructions 
of  circumstance  and  the  contradictions  of  men.  But  except 
when  we  thus  find  some  saint  amid  the  brood  of  Circe,  we 
deem  it  but  poor  praise  to  a  human  soul,  that  it  is  not  like 
the  brutes,  the  creature  of  impulse  and  slave  of  chance 
affection. 

From  these  instances  it  is  easy  to  collect  one  of  the  es- 
sential characteristics  of  all  merit.  There  is  no  room  for 
it  in  the  sphere  of  personal  and  prudential  conduct :  it  can 
arise  only  in  the  case  of  duty  to  others.  And  there  it  obtains 
no  admission,  so  long  as  we  merely  satisfy  the  claims  of 
justice,  and  comply  with  that  which  law  or  honor  have 
written  in  the  bond.  Failing  in  this,  we  incur  guilt  and 
demerit;  not  failing,  we  are  entitled  to  no  praise.  The 
first  entrance  of  merit,  according  to  the  sentiments  of  all 
men,  is  where  our  performance  goes  beyond  the  acknowledged 
rights  of  aiiother  ;  and  we  spontaneously  offer  what  human 
obligation  could  not  ask. 

There  is  a  second  characteristic  admitted  to  be  essential 
to  every  meritorious  act.  It  must  be  all  our  own^  the 
spontaneous  product  of  our  individual  will  and  affection. 
If  in  the  delirium  of  fever,  or  the  fancies  of  somnambulism, 
you  are  led,  by  the  command  of  some  guide  who  wields  you 
at  his  word,  to  put  forth  a  deed  of  outward  charity,  you  will 
take  no  more  credit  for  it,  than  for  the  heroic  achievements 
you  may  accomplish  in  your  dreams.  You  had  no  more  to 
do  with  the  act  than  with  the  sin  of  Lucifer.  You  were 
not  the  agent  in  the  case  ;  you  were  only  the  stage  on  which 
the  phenomenon  took  place.  And  show  me,  in  any  instance, 
that  a  man  is  not  the  originating  cause  of  his  own  apparent 
deed,  but,  in  this  manifestation  of  him,  only  an  effect  of 
some  extraneous  power  ;  show  me  that  he  would  never  have 
done  the  kindly  thing,  had  he  not  been  put  up  to  it  by  a 


360  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  OF  MERIT. 

force  that  pulls  the  wires  of  his  obedient  mind ;  show  me 
even,  that  he  had  some  personal  end  in  view,  and  proposed 
to  make  an  investment  in  generosity ;  —  and  it  is  in  vain 
that  you  ask  for  my  admiration :  as  soon  could  I  respect 
the  industry  of  a  clock,  or  the  energy  of  a  galvanized  limb. 
If  the  prompter  once  peeps  out,  I  know  the  whole  to  be  a 
piece  of  acting,  and  the  illusion  of  reality  is  instantaneously 
gone ;  only,  instead  of  the  avowedly  fictitious,  I  have  the 
insidiously  false,  and  am  the  dupe,  not  of  professed  enter- 
tainment, but  of  real  deception.  Spontaneity  then  is  an 
essential  to  each  man's  good  desert ;  and  in  precise  pro- 
portion to  the  partnership  there  may  be  in  his  agency,  will 
be  the  diminution  of  his  share. 

Here  then  we  have  the  two  requisites  and  characteristics 
of  every  meritorious  act :  it  must  overlap  the  limits  of  mere 
justice,  and  go  beyond  the  strict  rights  of  the  being  to 
whom  it  is  directed :  and  it  must  be  all  our  own.  Take 
away  either  of  these  properties,  and  merit  disappears. 

Now  it  is  the  characteristic  of  all  moral  systems,  as  such, 
that  they  allow  the  reality  of  human  merit ;  of  all  religious 
systems,  as  sucli,  and  of  the  simply  religious  heart  that  has 
no  system  at  all,  that  they  disown  it.  The  different  forms 
of  faith,  however,  do  this  in  different  ways  ;  and  the  follow- 
ing distinction  is  to  be  carefully  observed :  —  the  spurious 
representations  of  Christianity  take  away  all  demerit  at  the 
same  time ;  while  the  true  have  in  them  this  mystery,  that 
while  they  remove  the  lustre  of  merit,  the  shadow  of  demerit 
remains. 

Every  Fatalist  or  Predestinarian  scheme  destroys  merit 
by  denying  that  our  actions  are  our  own,  and  referring  them 
wholly  to  powers  of  which  we  are  not  lords  but  slaves.  We 
are  ourselves,  it  is  contended,  true  creators  of  nothing ;  but 
creatures,  absolutely  disposed  of  by  mightier  forces,  like  clay 
whirled  upon  the  potter's  wheel,  and  moulded  by  his  hand ; 
—  determinate  products  turned  out  from  the  great  work- 
shop of  the  universe,  with  functions  purely  mechanical,  like 


CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE   OF  MERIT.  361 

a  more  complex  kind  of  tool.  That  we  seem  to  have  a  self- 
moving  power,  to  put  forth  spontaneous  and  underived 
effort  belonging  wholly  to  our  personality,  is,  in  the  view 
of  this  doctrine,  an  illusion  of  our  short-sightedness,  due 
only  to  our  ignorance  or  forgetfulness  of  the  prime  mover 
of  our  energies.  All  this,  like  the  heaving  of  a  steam-engine, 
or  the  laboring  of  a  ship  at  sea,  is  done  for  and  upon  us, 
not  hy  us :  and  when,  in  our  remorse  for  the  past,  and  our 
resolves  for  the  future,  we  assume  that  we  are  in  a  responsi- 
ble trust  for  our  own  spiritual  state,  we  are  dupes  of  an 
ignorant  delusion,  at  which  philosophic  spirits  stand  by  and 
smile.  Fast  locked  within  the  series  of  natural  effects,  we 
are  the  ground  on  which  phenomena  appear  for  their  display, 
but  not  their  cause ;  the  inventor  and  exhibitor  stands 
behind  the  scenes,  and  shows  us  off.  Life,  in  short,  is  but 
the  long  phantasm  of  the  sleep-walker;  replete  with  the 
consciousness  of  nimble  thoughts,  and  vivid  passions,  and 
precarious  glories,  and  strenuous  deeds,  —  a  perfect  conflict 
of  awful  forces  to  him  that  is  within  it ;  but  to  the  eye  of 
waking  truth  outside,  still  and  passive  as  the  sculptured 
slumber  of  a  marble  image ;  a  casket  of  mimic  battles  and 
ideal  woes.  With  the  particular  sources  of  fallacy  in  this 
scheme,  I  have  not  now  any  direct  concern.  I  merely  wish 
to  point  out  that,  as  it  is  destructive  of  any  proper  agency 
in  the  human  being,  it  annihilates  at  once  merit  and  de- 
merit; sinks  man  from  a  person  into  a  thing ;  loses  all 
moral  distinctions,  by  representing  character  as  an  incident 
in  one's  lot,  like  health  or  disease,  the  color  of  the  hair  or 
the  robustness  of  the  limbs ;  and  renders  obligation  alto- 
gether impossible.  And  so,  along  with  the  inflation  of 
self-righteousness,  which  it  certainly  excludes,  this  scheme 
carries  away  also  the  healthful  sorrows  of  remorse.  Its 
humility  is  not  the  moral  consciousness  of  unworthiness  of 
character,  but  the  physical  sense  of  incapacity  of  nature ; 
and  the  disciple  looks  on  himself,  not  as  the  fallen  angel, 
but  as  the  ennobled  animal. 


362  CHRISTIAN   DOCTRINE   OF   MERIT. 

Now,  with  all  this  Christianity  appears  to  me  to  stand 
in  strongest  contrast.  It  annihilates  merit,  not  by  reducing 
obligation  to  nothing,  but  by  raising  it  to  infinitude.  Leav- 
ing us  the  originating  causes  of  our  own  acts,  as  we  had 
always  supposed  ourselves  to  be,  —  confirming  us  fully  in 
the  partnership  we  thus  enjoy  with  the  creative  energy  of 
God,  —  it  resists  all  encroachment  on  our  responsibility. 
But  then,  it  takes  away  from  us  the  other  element  of  merit. 
It  renders  it  impossible  for  our  performance  ever  to  overlap 
and  exceed  the  claims  upon  our  will.  For  it  changes  the 
relations  in  which,  with  a  conscience  simply  looking  round 
over  the  level  of  our  equals,  we  had  felt  ourselves  to  stand. 
Putting  us  under  heaven  as  well  as  upon  the  earthy  within 
the  presence  and  sanctuary  of  God,  while  we  are  at  the 
hearths  of  our  friends  and  in  the  streets  with  our  fellows, 
it  swallows  up  our  duties  to  them  in  one  immense  sphere 
of  duty  to  him.  Into  all  our  transactions  with  them,  it 
introduces  a  new  and  awful  partner,  to  whom  we  cannot 
say,  "  Thou  hast  no  business  between  them  and  us ;  if  we 
satisfy  each  other,  stand  thou  aloof !  "  As  the  holy  prompter 
of  our  conscience,  and  guardian  of  their  claims,  he  must  be 
omnipresent  with  his  interpositions.  To  him  therefore  our 
religion  makes  over  all  their  rights ;  and  thereby  not  only 
consecrates  and  preserves  them,  but  gives  them  boundless 
extension.  Instantly,  we  discern  as  a  true  demand  upon  us 
a  thousand  things  which  before  we  had  fancied  to  be  at  our 
discretion,  and  to  redound  to  our  praise,  if  we  conceded 
them.  Charity  merges  into  justice ;  love  and  pity  are  offer- 
ings that  may  not  be  withheld ;  and  every  former  gift 
becomes  a  debt.  All  good  that  is  not  impossible  is  a  thing 
now  due,  and  is  to  be  performed,  not  like  eye-service  unto 
men,  but  as  to  God:  a  solemn  transfer  of  responsibilities 
has  taken  place,  and  all  our  doings  are  with  the  Plighest 
now :  and  beyond  his  acknowledged  rights  we  can  never 
go,  so  as  to  deserve  any  thing  of  him.  Towards  him,  ob- 
ligation is  strictly  infinite :  it  covers  all  our  possibilities  of 


CHKISTIAN  DOCTEINE   OF   MERIT.  363 

achievement:  for,  the  very  circumstance  of  any  good  and 
noble  thing  being  possible^  and  revealed  to  our  hearts  as 
such,  constitutes  and  creates  it  a  duty.  Thus  suggested, 
it  is  one  of  the  trusts  committed  to  us  by  God,  —  the  work 
which  he,  the  great  spiritual  Artificer,  puts  into  his  true 
laborer's  hands  to  execute ;  to  keep  the  material,  and  not 
weave  the  texture,  of  his  designs,  were  a  false  and  unfaithful 
thing.  Nor,  when  we  have  completed  it,  can  we  establish 
any  title  to  even  the  most  insignificant  reward.  For  what 
are  wages  after  all  ?  Are  they  not,  in  effect,  the  laborer's 
share  of  the  produce  created,  only  paid  in  anticipation 
of  the  finished  task,  —  an  advance  founded  on  his  right  to 
subsist  while  he  toils?  And  do  they  not  cancel  all  his 
claim  to  participate  afterwards  in  the  product  of  his  skill  ? 
This  perpetual  loan  by  which  he  lives,  and  which  he  works 
off  by  exertion  ever  renewed,  he  cheerfully  accepts  in  dis- 
charge of  all  his  rights.  And  what  recompenses  are  ever 
prepaid  so  freely  as  those  of  God?  He  waits  not  for  a 
week's,  not  even  for  a  moment's  industry,  but  is  before- 
hand with  us  every  way.  We  have  never  earned  the  living 
which  he  gives  us  in  this  world ;  we  cannot  plead  that  we 
have  a  right  to  be.  The  field  and  the  faculty  of  work 
are  alike  furnished  forth  by  him.  A  little  while  ago,  and 
we  were  not  here ;  a  little  while  again,  and  we  shall  be 
gone  from  our  place :  and  have  we  not  then  been  wholly 
set  up  at  our  post  in  this  universe  by  our  great  Task- 
master? and  does  he  not,  by  the  fact  of  existence  itself, 
make  us  his  perpetual  debtors  ?  Yes  :  the  successive  mo- 
ments, as  they  pass,  are  the  counters  of  his  constant  pay- 
ment ;  which  we  can  neither  reckon  nor  refuse,  but  only 
hasten  to  seize  and  to  employ.  And  so,  it  is  impossible  for 
us  ever  to  overtake  his  advances.  With  our  fastest  speed 
they  fly  before  us  still,  like  the  shadow  which  his  light 
behind  us  casts,  only  lengthening  as  we  go,  till  it  stretches 
over  the  brink  of  time,  and  covers  the  abyss  of  eternity. 
Resign   we  then   every  high   pretension,   and   stand   with 


304  CHRISTIAN  i:)OCTRINE   OF  MERIT. 

bended  and  uncovered  head  of  self-renunciation;  grateful 
for  every  blessing  God  may  send ;  eager  for  all  the  work 
he  may  appoint ;  but  saying,  when  all  is  done,  "  we  are  un- 
profitable servants;  we  have  done  that"  alone, —  and  alas! 
far  less,  —  "  which  was  our  duty  to  do." 


'       OP'   TflK      ^ 


UNI7ERSIT7 


XXXVI. 
THE    CHILD'S    THOUGHT. 


1  Corinthians  xin.  11. 

WHEN  I  WAS  A  CHILD,  I  SPAKE  AS  A  CHILD,  I  UNDERSTOOD  AS  A  CHILD, 
I  THOUGHT  AS  A  CHILD  ;  BUT  WHEN  I  BECAME  A  MAN,  I  PUT  AWAY 
CHILDISH   THINGS. 

The  noblest  prophets  and  apostles  have  been  children  once ; 
lisping  the  speech,  laughing  the  laugh,  thinking  the  thought 
of  boyhood.  Undistinguished  as  Paul  then  was  amid  the 
crowd,  unless  by  more  earnest  and  confiding  eye,  there  was 
something  passing  within  him  of  which,  it  would  seem,  he 
preserved,  in  the  kindling  moments  of  his  manly  soul,  the 
memory  and  the  trace.  And  there  are  few  men,  I  suppose, 
who  do  not  at  times  send  back  a  gentle  glance  into  their 
early  days  ;  not  only  looking  upon  faces  vanished  now,  and 
listening  to  voices  that  have  become  as  distant  music  to  the 
mind ;  but  remembering  the  throbbing  pulse  of  their  own 
hopes,  the  strain  of  heroic  purpose,  and  the  awful  step  of 
wonder  unabated  yet.  Between  ourselves  and  the  apostle, 
however,  there  is  an  expressive  difference  here.  We  usually 
turn  from  the  past  with  a  s!gh,  and  a  seciet  sense  of  irrevo- 
cable loss ;  he,  with  hands  clasped  in  thanksgiving,  as  in  the 
glory  of  an  infinite  gain.  We  envy  our  own  children,  and 
would  fain  put  back  the  shadow  on  our  dial,  to  feel  again 
the  morning  sun  that  shines  so  softly  upon  them ;  he  springs 
with  glad  escape  out  of  hours  too  recent  from  the  night,  and 
welcomes  the  increasing  glow  of  an  eternal  day.  To  us,  the 
chief  beauty,  the  only  sanctities  of  life,  are  apt  to  appear  in 


366  THE  child's  thought. 

the  shelter  of  our  early  years :  they  are  like  a  home  that  we 
have  deserted,  a  love  that  we  have  lost,  a  faith  cheated  from 
our  hearts.  As  we  ascend  the  mountain-chain  of  life,  so 
long  a  towering  mystery  to  our  uplifted  eye,  they  lie  beneath 
as  the  green  hollow  of  the  Alpine  valley ;  to  whose  native 
fields  return  is  cut  oif  for  fever ;  whence  the  incense  of  our 
faith  went  up  straight  to  heaven,  like  the  first  smoke  from 
the  village  hearths  into  the  clear,  calm  air ;  wliose  sunny 
grass  thaws  the  very  heart  of  us,  nipped  by  the  glacier's 
keenest  breath  ;  whose  stately  trees,  still  dotting  the  ground 
with  points  of  shade,  seem  to  leave  us  more  exposed  amid 
the  scant  and  stunted  growths  of  this  wintry  height ;  and 
whose  church-peal,  floating  faintly  on  the  ear,  makes  us 
shudder  all  the  more  at  the  bleak  winds  near,  booming  in 
icy  caverns,  or  whispering  to  the  plains  of  silent  snow.  But 
Paul,  though  not  untouched  perhaps  by  the  poetry  of  child- 
hood, regarded  it  without  regret.  With  him,  its  inspiration 
had  risen,  not  declined  ;  its  unconscious  heaven  had  not 
retreated,  but  pressed  closer  on  his  heart,  till  it  had  mingled 
with  his  nature,  and  articulately  spoken  there.  He  was  not 
going  up  into  life  to  lose  himself  amid  the  relentless  ele- 
ments, and  get  buried  by  the  avalanche  of  years  in  chasms 
of  fate ;  but,  to  conquer  Nature  and  look  down ;  to  stand 
upon  her  higher  and  higher  watch-towers,  till  he  found  a 
way  clear  into  the  climate  of  the  skies ;  and,  like  Moses  on 
Mount  Nebo,  with  "  his  eye  not  dim,"  could  discern,  at  the 
pointing  of  God,  "  the  whole  land  "  of  life  "  unto  the  utmost 
sea;"  —  and  then  pass  where  no. horizon  bounds  the  view. 
We,  too  often,  in  putting  awity  childish  things,  part  with 
the  wrong  elements;  losing  the  heavenly  insight,  keeping 
the  earthly  darkness.  We  put  away  the  guileless  mind,  the 
pure  vision,  the  simple  trust,  the  tender  conscience;  and 
reserve  the  petty  scale  of  thought,  the  hasty  will,  the  love 
of  toys  and  strife.  Paul  put  away  only  the  ignorance  and 
littleness  of  childhood,  bearing  with  him  its  freshness,  its 
truth,  its  God,  into  the  grand  work  of  his  full  ager     And 


THE  child's  thought.  367 

hence,  while  our  religion  lies  somewhere  near  our  cradle, 
and  is  a  kind  of  sacred  memory,  his  lived  on  to  speak  for 
itself  instead  of  being  talked  about.  It  fought  all  his  con- 
flicts:  it  took  the  weight  out  of  his  chains:  it  condensed 
the  lightning  of  his  pen ;  and  kindled  the  whole  furnace  of 
his  glorious  nature. 

There  is  a  natural  difference  between  the  religion  of  child- 
hood, of  youth,  and  of  maturity,  which  appears  to  be  \ery 
much  overlooked  in  our  expectations  and  practices  with 
regard  to  each.  The  human  mind  is  not  the  same  in  all 
periods  of  its  history  :  its  wants,  its  faculties,  its  affections, 
shift  their  relative  proportions,  as  that  history  proceeds : 
and  a  power,  which,  like  religion,  is  to  hover  over  it  con- 
tinually, and  to  lift  it  by  a  constant  attraction,  must  not 
always  suspend  itself  over  the  same  feelings,  and  offer  one 
invariable  representation.  Its  resources  are  infinite  :  its 
beauty  is  inexhaustible  ;  its  truth  dipped  in  every  color  into 
which  the  light  of  heaven  is  broken  by  the  prism  of  thought: 
and  it  must  adapt  itself  to  the  characteristics  of  every  period 
which  needs  its  sway.  Nor  is  there  the  least  art  or  cunning 
policy  implied  in  this ;  but  only  a  soul  of  natural  sympathy, 
to  take  on  it  at  will  the  burdens  of  the  child,  the  youth,  the 
man ;  to  see  their  love,  their  fear,  their  admiration ;  to  doubt 
their  doubts,  and  pray  their  prayers ;  and  simply  to  avoid 
the  cruelty  of  offering  the  garment  of  grief  to  the  spirit  of 
joy,  and  singing  songs  to  the  heavy  heart.  Some  features 
belonging  to  the  early  period  of  life,  which  should  be  borne 
in  mind  in  the  conduct  of  religious  education,  I  would 
briefly  indicate. 

Childhood  is  emphatically  the  period  of  safe  instincts  ; 
permitting  it  to  try  for  awhile  the  unreflective  life  of  creat- 
ures less  than  human.  Only  the  ingenuity  of  artificial 
corruption  can  spoil  them.  In  themselves,  they  are  incapa- 
ble of  excess,  and  offer  few  temptations  to  wrong,  that  are 
not  adequately  counteracted  by  some  balancing  affection. 
They  simply  ask  to  be  let  alone,  and  suffer  no  perversion  : 


368  THE  child's  thought. 

give  them  room  to  open  out ;  use  no  premature  compression 
to  drive  them  back;  and  they  will  check  each  other,  and 
find  a  fairer  proportion  than  can  be  given  by  your  rules. 
In  these  shrewd  days,  in  which  it  has  become  the  cleverest 
thing  to  suspect  the  Devil  everywhere,  and  God  nowhere,  it 
is  thought  romantic  to  believe  in  the  innocence  of  child- 
hood ;  pardonable  perhaps  in  a  woman,  but  an  intolerable 
softness  in  a  man.  And  possibly  it  is,  if  applied  to  the 
actual  children,  once  born  in  the  image  of  God,  but  long 
ago  twisted  into  our  miserable  likeness,  by  the  sight  of  our 
luxuries,  the  contagion  of  our  selfishness,  the  hearing  of  our 
lies  :  possibly  it  is,  if  applied  to  those  whom  the  church 
teaches  to  blaspheme  their  own  nature,  to  confess  a  sham 
guilt,  and  prate  of  an  unreal  rescue  from  an  unfelt  danger. 
For  the  world  is  often  right  in  fact,  though  wrong  in  truth : 
and  the  church  has  acted  with  a  cunning  theology  in  this 
matter ;  having  first  spoiled  all  the  children  with  its  inani- 
ties, and  then  produced  them  in  its  court  in  evidence  of 
original  depravity.  But  if  both  world  and  church  will 
only  learn  what  the  child's  simple  presence  may  teach, 
instead  of  teaching  what  he  cannot  innocently  learn,  the 
truth  may  dawn  upon  them,  that  he  seldom  requires  to.  be 
led,  —  only  not  to  be  misled.  A  reform  in  the  nursery  will 
change  the  creed  of  Christendom;  no  hierarchy  can  stand 
against  it ;  and  the  pinafore  of  the  child  will  be  more  than 
a  match  for  the  frock  of  the  bishop  and  the  surplice  of  the 
priest.  If  it  be  romance  to  look  with  something  of  reverent 
affection  at  the  being  not  yet  remote  from  God,  it  is  at  least 
a  romance  that  has  come  to  us  on  a  voice  most  full  of  grace 
and  truth  :  it  breathes  fresh  from  the  hills  of  Nazareth ;  and 
its  emblem  is  that  wondering  infant  in  the  arms  of  Christ, 
visible  thence  over  all  the  earth,  as  the  chosen  watch  at  the 
gate  of  heaven.  Whatever  be  thought  of  this  doctrine,  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  there  is,  in  early  years,  an  openness 
to  habit,  which,  while  it  quickly  punishes  our  neglect,  as 
quickly  answers  to  our  care.     No  ready-made  obstruction, 


THE  child's  thought.  369 

no  ruined  work,  is  given  ns  to  undo.  Wise  direction  alone 
is  needed ;  and  such  frame-work  and  moulding  for  the  life 
as  we  may  advisedly  construct,  will  receive  the  growing 
nature  as  its  silent  occupant.  Nay,  this  is  largely  true,  not 
only  of  the  acts  of  the  hand,  but  of  the  methods  and  per- 
suasions of  the  mind  :  for  childhood  has  a  ready  faith^  that 
maybe  most  blessedly  used  or  most  wickedly  abused;  a  faith 
so  open  to  the  sense  of  God,  that  almost  unspoken,  and  as 
by  look  of  holy  sympathy,  it  may  be  given  ;  so  eager,  that 
it  will  seize  on  all  the  aliment  of  thought  within  its  reach ; 
so  trustful,  that  it  feels  no  difficulty,  and  will  cause  you 
none.  Your  problem  of  guidance  will  therefore  be,  not  so 
much  to  evade  present  embarrassments,  as  to  prevent  the 
shock  of  future  perplexities,  that  must  arise,  when  finite 
thought  attempts  to  grasp  an  infinite  faith,  and  reason 
descends  to  find  its  own  ground,  which  it  ever  carries  with 
it  as  it  dives.  Nor  is  there  any  positive  way  of  avoiding 
such  a  crisis  of  the  soul.  Only,  there  is  a  negative  wisdom 
in  not  shutting  up  the  faith  ;  in  leaving  a  place  for  future 
acquisitions,  and  verge  enough  for  the  larger  operations  of 
the  mind.  Meanwhile,  one  thing  is  to  be  immediately  and 
always  observed.  Through  the  susceptibility  of  the  relig- 
ious principle,  you  may  make  the  child  believe  in  any  God, 
from  the  Egyptian  cat  to  the  inspirer  of  Christ.  But  there  * 
is  only  one  God  that  can  really  possess  him  with  an  awful 
love  ;  namely,  such  a  one  as  seems  to  him  the  highest  and 
the  best.  And  of  this  there  can  be  no  constant  conception 
through  life ;  it  changes  as  experience  deepens,  and  affec- 
tions open  and  die  away.  Yours  cannot  be  the  same  as 
his  :  and  if  you  speak  without  sympathy,  if  you  forget  your 
different  latitude  of  mind,  you  may  repel  rather  than  in- 
struct, and  give  root  to  a  choking  thorn  of  hatred,  instead 
of  a  fruitful  seed  of  love.  If  the  name  of  God  is  to  be 
sweet  and  solemn  to  young  hearts,  it  must  stand  for  their 
highest,  not  for  ours :  and  many  a  phrase,  rich  and  deep  in 
tone  to  us,  must  be  shunned  as  sure  to  jar  on  spirits  differ- 

24 


870  THE  child's  thought. 

ently  attuned.  Oh  how  many  obstructions  have  not  vera- 
cious men  to  remove  ere  they  can  find  their  true  religion  ! 
How  long  do  they  say  their  prayers,  before  they  pray,  and 
hear  and  speak  of  holy  things  without  a  touch  of  worship  ! 
How  many  years  did  we  look  up  into  only  damp,  uncom- 
fortable clouds,  that  did  but  wet  and  darken  life,  ere  the 
pure  breeze  set  in,  and  swept  the  curtain  from  the  eternal 
sky,  and  mingled  us  with  the  genuine  night,  and  set  us  eye 
to  eye  with  the  watchful  stars !  If  when  1  thought  as  a 
child,  I  had  also  dared  to  speak  as  a  child,  should  I  not 
have  said,  "Talk  to  me  no  more ;  I  hate  the  name  of  God"? 
—  yet,  not  the  God  that  ever  lives  and  loves,  but  the  stiff 
idol  of  the  catechism,  looking  rigorous  from  the  narrow 
niche  of  a  decaying  Puritanism.  Not  the  God,  whose  kiss 
is  in  the  light,  whose  gladness  on  the  riding  sea,  whose 
voice  upon  the  storm  ;  who  shapes  the  little  grass,  and 
hides  in  the  forest,  and  rustles  in  the  shower ;  who  benda 
the  rainbow,  and  blanches  the  snow :  for  children  delight 
in  nature,  and  from  wonder  at  its  beauty  easily  slide  into 
adoration  of  its  Lord.  Not  the  God,  who  moulded  the  orbs 
that  Newton  weighed,  and  traced  the  curves  he  measured, 
and  blended  the  colors  he  untwined ;  who  was  on  the  earth 
when  no  man  was,  and  buried  the  tribes  now  dug  from  the 
mountains  and  the  plains ;  who  thinks  at  this  moment  every 
thought  that  science  shall  develop,  and  reads  the  folded 
scroll  of  future  history  :  for  children  delight  in  knowledge, 
and  will  kneel  with  joy  to  Him,  with  whom  it  is  at  once 
concentred  and  diffused.  Not  certainly  the  God,  who 
looked  out  upon  our  life  and  death,  our  strife  and  sorrow, 
through  the  soul  of  Christ;  who  can  no  more  abide  the 
hypocrite  and  the  unjust  that  walk  the  streets  to-day,  than 
Jesus  the  whited  sepulchres  of  old  ;  who  lets  no  widow's 
mite  escape  his  eye,  no  grateful  heart,  though  of  the  leper 
p.nd  the  heretic,  go  without  its  praise :  for  children  love 
justice,  mercy,  and  truth,  and  will  trust  themselves  freely  to 
Him  in  whom  they  dwell  beyond  degree. 


371 

!N"or  is  it  only  in  its  conception  of  God,  that  the  faith  of 
the  child  must  differ  from  that  of  the  man.  Its  moral  ele- 
ment is  also  peculiar.  To  him  religion,  applied  to  life,  pre- 
sents itself  exclusively  as  a  law^  —  and  a  law  that  there  is 
no  serious  difficulty  in  perfectly  obeying.  Prescribing  a 
clear  scheme  of  duty,  and  a  natural  and  delightful  state  of 
affection,  it  seems  to  him  so  simple  and  practicable,  that  he 
is  full  of  courage,  goes  forth  with  joyous  step,  and  with 
confiding  look  gazes  straight  upon  the  open  countenance  of 
the  future.  He  cannot  understand  the  penitential  strains 
that  float  from  the  older  world  around  him  :  what  have 
these  people  been  about,  that  they  have  so  much  evil  to 
bewail  ?  They  appear  to  him  very  worthy,  nay  altogether 
faithful  and  meritorious.  Christians ;  and  it  is  very  strange 
they  should  speak  so  grievously  to  God,  and  stand  before 
him  with  a  culprit  air  and  streaming  tears.  In  all  this, 
though  it  has  no  shadow  of  pretence,  he  cannot  join ;  it 
comes  of  a  deeper  truth  of  nature  than  he  yet  has  reached. 
His  circle  of  life  is  narrow,  and  his  idea  of  life  lies  quiet 
within  it :  the  thing  which  he  thinks  in  his  conscience  in  the 
morning,  he  can  do  with  sedulous  hand  before  night.  His 
conception  of  duty  is  legal  and  human  only,  not  spiritual  and 
divine:  it  has  not  yet  burst  into  transcendent  aspiration, 
whose  infinite  glory  in  front  spreads  the  inseparable  shadow 
of  sorrow  and  ill  behind.  Sin  therefore  remains  to  him  a 
dreadful  image  from  some  foreign  world ;  a  spectre  of  horrid 
witchery,  whose  incantations  overflow  from  the  cursing  lips 
of  bad  men,  and  whose  fires  gleam  from  their  impure  eyes. 
But  it  is  a  thing  that  is  preternatural  still :  he  looks  at  it 
outside  his  nature,  as  haunting  history  and  the  world  ;  it  is 
not  yet  a  sorrowful  reality  within.  His  religion  therefore  is 
a  cheerful  reverence  ;  and  with  its  sweet  light  no  tinge  should 
mix  from  the  later  solemnity  and  inner  conflicts  of  faith. 
Let  him  take  his  vow  with  a  glad  voice  :  if  you  drive  hira 
prematurely  to  the  confessional,  you  make  him  false.  The 
matin-hymn  of  life  to  God  is  brilliant  with  hope  and  praise : 


372  THE  child's  thought. 

and,  without  violence  to  nature,  you  cannot  displace  it  for 
the  deep,  low-breathing,  vesper-song :  the  rosy  air  of  so  fresh 
a  time  was  never  made  to  vibrate  to  that  strain.  Even 
from  the  stony  heart  of  old  Meranon  on  the  waste,  beams 
vivid  as  the  morning  wrung  a  murmur  of  happy  melody  : 
and  only  at  the  dip  of  day  did  a  passing  plaint  float  through 
the  desert's  stately  silence.  It  is,  I  am  persuaded,  a  fatal 
thing,  when  we  men  and  women,  who  make  all  the  cate- 
chisms, and  shape  all  the  doctrines,  and  invent  all  the  Ian- 
gunge  of  Christian  faith,  force  our  adult  religion,  with  its 
meditative  depth,  upon  the  heart  of  childhood,  not  yet  ca- 
pacious enough  to  take  it  in.  Puritanism,  —  tit  faith  for  the 
stalwart  devotion  of  earnest  manhood  in  grim  times, —  can- 
not be  adapted  to  the  childish  mind ;  and  the  attempt  to  do 
80  will  inevitably  produce  distaste,  and  occasion  reaction. 
This  indeed  we  can  hardly  doubt  is  one  great  and  perma- 
nent cause  of  the  alternations  observable  from  age  to  age 
in  the  faith  and  spirit  of  communities ;  alternations  from 
enthusiasm  to  indifference,  from  scepticism  to  mysticism, 
from  the  anxieties  of  moral  law  to  the  fervor  of  devout  love, 
from  a  religion  of  excessive  inwardness  to  one  of  outward 
rites  or  daily  work.  These  changes,  though  often  long  in 
openly  declaring  themselves,  really  and  at  heart  take  place 
by  generations.  The  true  seat  of  the  revolution  is  in  the 
nursery  and  the  school :  the  children  being  unable  to  receive 
what  their  fathers  insist  upon  giving ;  getting  gradually  loos- 
ened from  a  thing  that  never  held  them  in  the  hollow  of  its 
hand,  but  only  detained  them  by  the  skirts  of  the  garment ; 
and  obliged  at  last  to  begin  anew,  and  try  the  power  of 
faith's  neglected  pole. 

As  childhood  merges  into  youth,  the  characteristics  I 
have  described  undergo  a  rapid  and  momentous  change. 
The  early  security  is  gone.  The  stronger  powers  demand 
a  sterner  police  of  conscience  to  maintain  their  peace  and 
harmony.  The  whole  soul  displays,  —  in  its  intellect,  its  de- 
sires, its  sentiments  of   duty,  —  the   great  transition  from 


THE  child's  thought.  373 

the  natural  to  self-conscious  and  reflective  existence.  A 
greater  openness  to  beauty,  a  more  spontaneous  quickness 
of  affection,  a  more  plenary  enthusiasm  for  goodness,  com- 
bine to  waken  up  unutterable  aspirations,  and  put  upon  the 
countenance  of  life,  as  it  gazes  into  the  young  eyes,  an  ex- 
pression of  divinest  glory.  New  conditions  are  reached 
under  which  the  simple,  light-hearted  piety  cannot  longer 
stay.  Duty  is  more  than  the  child's  task-work  now.  So 
grand  and  awful  does  it  rise,  that  it  makes  the  actual  deeds 
that  lie  beneath  look  small,  like  the  cultured  garden  at  the 
Andes'  base.  Hence,  to  even  the  most  brave  and  buoyant 
spirit,  the  sigh  that  seemed  once  so  strange  is  not  unknown. 
There  is  an  incipient  experience  of  that  sad  interval  be- 
tween conception,  now  so  rich,  and  execution  still  so  poor, 
which  traces  the  lines  of  deepest  care  upon  the  face  of  men ; 
—  not  however  settled  yet  into  that  steady  and  wonderful 
shadow  of  guilt,  which  has  spread  over  the  purest  and  most 
strenuous  souls  of  Christendom ;  but  coming  fitfully  and 
vanishing  again ;  taking  its  turn  with  the  bold  young  faith 
that  nothing  worthy  can  be  hard  to  good  resolve ;  and  only 
dashing  the  familiar  joy  with  new  longings  and  repent- 
ances. Amid  the  fiercer  struggle  that  sets  in,  the  great 
thing  needed  is  strength  of  moral  denial^  the  courage  to  say 
no  to  all  questionable  men  and  unquestionable  fiends.  Mean- 
while, the  very  faculties  of  thought  are  changing  too.  The 
appetite  for  facts  is  passing  into  an  eagerness  for  truths  full 
also  of  deep  anxieties.  Sometimes  this  noble  passion  de- 
generately tends  to  a  disagreeable  dogmatism,  from  the 
mind's  having  lost  its  childish  source  of  trust,  and  not  yet 
having  gained  the  manly,  and  for  awhile  holding  the  faith 
neither  in  weak  dependence  on  authority,  nor  in  genial  re- 
pose on  the  universal  reason  and  conscience,  but  by  the  lit- 
tle personal  tenure  of  private  argument.  And,  sometimes, 
it  is  productive  of  dark  agonies  of  doubt  and  loneliness, 
drearier  than  death  ;  leaving  the  soul  exposed  upon  the 
field  of  conflict,  without  a  God  to  strive  for,  or  a  weapon 


374  THE  child's  thought. 

for  the  fight.  Happily,  however,  the  moral  straggle  of  this 
period  comes  before  the  mental ;  and  is  well  over  with  the 
faithful,  ere  the  needed  strength  is  broken  ;  and  oftener 
than  is  guessed,  I  am  convinced,  it  is  the  issue  of  the  earlier 
battle  of  the  conscience,  that  really  determines  how  the 
later  strife  of  the  intellect  shall  end.  Men  that  have  lived 
a  few  years  of  hardness  for  God's  sake,  are  rarely  left  by 
him  to  roam  the  wilds  of  doubt  alone. 

It  is  not  much  perhaps  that  direct  and  purposed  teaching 
can  contribute  to  the  efficacy  of  the  religious  sentiments. 
But  its  happy  avail,  whatever  it  be,  depends  on  its  con- 
formity with  the  conditions  we  have  traced.  If  only  we 
will  not  hinder,  God  has  a  providence  most  rich  in  help. 
Judge  not  the  child's  mind  by  your  own ;  nor  fancy  that 
you  have  a  religion  to  create  against  some  powerful  resist- 
ance, which  skill  is  needed  to  evade  or  proof  to  overcome. 
His  spirit,  if  unspoiled,  is  with  you,  not  against  you,  when 
you  speak  of  God.  Faith  is  the  natural  and  normal  state 
of  the  human  heart;  doubt  isats  feverish  disease:  and  that 
which  may  be  the  fit  remedy  for  your  sickness,  may  be  the 
poison  of  his  health.  He  needs  but  the  fresh  air  and  pure 
nourishment  of  life  ;  give  him  not  the  pharmacopoeia  of 
theology,  instead  of  the  bread  of  heaven.  Disturb  him  not 
with  unprofitable  "  Evidences : "  they  are  burdensome  as 
the  statutes-at-large  to  the  heart  of  spontaneous  justice ; 
—  misplaced  as  a  court  of  chancery  in  heaven.  He  has 
already  the  truth  which,  at  best,  they  can  only  have  pre- 
vented you  from  losing  :  it  is  not  the  tenure,  but  the  scope, 
of  his  belief  that  is  given  you  to  improve.  And  in  your 
efforts  to  enlarge  it,  it  is  well  to  proceed  outwards  rather 
than  inwards;  to  awaken  apprehension  of  facts,  more  than 
reflection  upon  feelings ;  to  glorify  for  the  young  disciple's 
eye  the  world  around  him,  by  lifting  the  veil  from  what 
is  beautiful  in  nature  and  great  in  history;  and  not  drive 
devotion  back  upon  self-wonder  and  self-scrutiny.  The 
attempt  to  elicit  a  religion  by  interrogating  his  conscious' 


THE  child's  thought.  375 

ness,  and  to  find  in  his  heart  all  the  mysteries  of  a  meta- 
physical and  moral  experience,  will  end  only  with  affectation 
in  the  appearance,  and  unsoundness  at  the  very  core,  of  his 
nature.  The  green  fruit  may  be  sweetened  by  confectionery 
arts  ;  but  the  fermentation  of  the  oven  is  not  like  the  ripen- 
ing of  the  sun ;  if  it  hastens  the  relish  of  the  moment,  it 
killsf  the  seed  of  future  hope.  Scarcely  need  the  child  know 
that  he  has  a  soul ;  it  is  ours  to  take  care  that,  when  at 
length  he  finds  it,  it  shall  be  a  noble  and  august  discovery  ; 
full  of  admirations  never  to  be  superseded,  and  of  love  that 
shall  bring  no  repentance.  For  this  end,  his  teaching  should 
be  mainly  external  and  objective ;  given  with  an  eye  ever 
fixed  on  the  true  good  which  he  most  readily  discerns  to 
be  great  and  sacred.  Let  Palestine  be  to  him,  as  to  so  many 
ages  it  has  been,  a  Holy  Land  ;  and  Jesus,  in  his  gentle 
majesty,  the  fixed  and  realized  representative  of  God ;  and 
the  high  deeds  and  souls  of  the  past  be  claimed  as  the  ex- 
pressions of  his  will ;  and  opening  glimpses  be  afforded  into* 
that  natural  universe  which  he  rules  in  the  spirit  of  the 
divine  Nazarene.  Yet  withal,  the  exigencies  of  a  more 
advanced  age,  though  not  anticipated,  need  not  be  forgot- 
ten. Some  prospective  regard  may  be  had  to  the  reflective 
years  which  will  bring  their  wants  at  length ;  and  without 
teaching  any  present  theory  of  religion,  its  future  demands 
may  be  remembered  in  a  thousand  ways.  If  you  would 
prepare,  not  a  mere  baby-house,  but  a  right  noble  structure 
of  faith,  in  which  the  soul  shall  have  a  life-interest,  you  will 
not  only  lay  the  foundation  broad  and  deep,  but  avoid  filling 
in  with  mean  and  perishable  materials  the  parts,  of  which 
the  childish  eye  may  see  the  surface,  but  which  only  the 
manly  thought  can  build  in  strength.  The  unnoticed  out- 
line of  system  may  be  so  drawn,  that  painful  and  deforming 
erasures  hereafter  may  be  spared ;  and  by  mere  expansion 
of  the  old  boundary,  and  insertion  of  new  beauty  and  new 
wealth,  the  earnest  veracity  of  the  philosopher  may  be  but 
the  glorified  piety  of  the  child.     As  larger  views  of  the  uni- 


876 

verse  and  life  are  opened  out,  a  Providence  will  be  felt  to 
abide  there  still :  the  laws  which  are  detected,  the  unsus- 
pected grandeur  that  is  revealed,  will  be  entered  in  some 
orderly  manner,  as  parts  of  the  mighty  scheme  ;  and,  instead 
of  subverting  the  central  and  divine  authority,  will  be  but 
a  province  added  to  its  sway.  And  as  the  years  of  deep 
and  subjective  religion  come,  and  the  mind  sinks  in  wonder 
before  its  own  mysteries,  the  self-consciousness,  as  it  wakes 
and  starts  up,  will  on  the  instant  see  God  standing  in  the 
midst.  Such  at  least  is  the  tendency  of  instruction  wisely 
given.  Still  we  must  remember,  that  religion  is  after  all 
beyond  the  range  of  mere  tuition.  It  is  not  a  didactic  thing 
that  words  can  give,  and  silence  can  withhold.  It  is  a  spirit ; 
a  life ;  an  aspiration  ;  a  contagious  glory  from  soul  to  soul ; 
a  spontaneous  union  with  God.  Our  inward  unfaithfulness 
is  sure  to  extinguish  it ;  our  outward  policy  cannot  produce 
it.  To  love  and  to  do  the  holy  will  is  the  ultimate  way, 
not  only  to  know  the  truth,  but  to  lead  others  to  know  it 
too. 


XXXVII. 
LOOKING  UP,  AND  LIFTING  UP. 


Romans  xv.  1,  3. 

we  then  that  are  strong  ought  to  bear  the  infirmities  of  the 
weak,  and  not  to  please  ourselves: — for  even  christ  pleased 
not  himself. 

In  the  grouping  of  nature,  dissimilar  things  are  invariably 
brought  together,  and  by  serving  each  other's  wants  and 
furnishing  the  complement  to  each  other's  beauty,  present 
a  whole  more  perfect  than  the  sum  of  all  the  parts.  The 
world  we  live  in  is  not  a  cabinet  of  curiosities,  in  which  every 
kind  of  thing  has  an  assortment  of  its  own,  labelled  with  its 
exclusive  characters,  and  scrupulously  separated  from  objects 
of  kindred  tribe.  The  free  creative  hand  distributes  its 
riches  by  other  order  than  the  formal  arrangements  of  a 
museum ;  and,  for  the  happy  life  and  action  of  the  universe, 
blends  a  thousand  things,  which,  for  ends  of  knowledge 
only,  would  be  kept  apart.  A  single  natural  object  may 
be  the  focus  of  all  human  studies,  and  present  problems  to 
puzzle  a  whole  congress  of  the  wise.  A  tropical  mountain, 
for  instance,  is  a  seat  for  all  the  sciences;  and  from  the 
snows  of  its  summit  to  the  ocean  at  its  base,  ranges  through 
every  realm  of  the  physical  world,  and  presents  samples  of 
the  objects  and  forces  peculiar  to  each.  Its  granite  masses 
stand  up  as  the  monumental  trophy  of  nature's  engineering; 
while  each  successive  stratum  piled  around  their  pedestal 
is  as  a  notch  on  the  score  and  chronicle  of  her  operations. 
Its  melting  glaciers  and  its  poised  clouds  keep  her  chemical 


878  LOOKING   UP,   AND  LIFTING   UP. 

register;  showing  the  temperature  of  her  laboratory,  and 
marking  the  dew-point  every  hour.  And  from  the  lichen 
and  the  moss  that  paint  its  upper  rocks,  through  the  fields 
and  forests  of  its  slope,  to  the  sea-weeds  that  cling  around 
its  roots,  it  carries  gradations  of  vegetable  and  animal  life 
more  various  than  can  be  told  by  the  most  accomplished 
physiologist.  And  perhaps  from  some  platforin  on  its  side 
the  observatory  may  be  raised ;  whence  the  astronomer 
obtains  his  glimpse  at  other  regions  of  creation,  surveys  the 
lordly  estate  of  the  sun  of  whom  our  holding  is,  and  espies 
the  realm  of  space  beyond,  where  worlds  lie  thick  as  forest- 
leaves.  In  this,  we  have  only  a  representation  of  the 
harmonizing  method  of  creation  everywhere,  which  com- 
bines the  most  unlike  things  into  a  perfect  unity.  The 
several  kingdoms  of  nature,  as  we  term  them,  are  not  like 
our  political  empires,  enclosed  with  jealous  boundaries,  thick 
with  commercial  barriers,  and  bristling  with  military  posts. 
They  pervade  and  penetrate  each  other :  they  form  together 
an  indissoluble  economy;  the  mineral  subduing  itself  into 
a  basis  for  the  organic,  the  vegetable  supporting  the  anim:  1, 
th*e  vital  culminating  in  the  spiritual;  weak  thin sjfs  clinging 
to  the  strong,  as  the  moss  to  the  oak's  trunk,  and  the  insect 
to  its  leaf ;  death  acting  as  the  purveyor  of  life,  and  life 
playing  the  sexton  to  death.  Mutual  service  in  endless 
gradation  is  clearly  the  world's  great  law. 

In  the  natural  grouping  of  human  life,  the  same  rule  is 
found.  It  is  not  similarity  but  c?tssimilarity,  that  constitutes 
the  qualification  for  heartfelt  union  among  mankind  :  and 
the  mental  affinities  resemble  the  electric,  in  which  like 
poles  repel,  while  the  unlike  attract.  A  family,  —  thnn 
which  there  is  no  more  genuine  type  of  nature's  method  of 
arrangement,  —  is  throughout  a  combination  of  oppo sites  ; 
the  woman  depending  on  the  man, — whose  very  strength 
however  exists  only  by  her  weakness;  the  child  hanging  on 
the  parent,  —  whose  power  were  no  blessing,  were  it  not 
compelled  to  stoop  in  gentleness ;   the  brother  protecting 


LOOKING   UP,   AND   LIFTING   UP.  379 

the  sister,  —  whose  affections  would  have  but  half  their 
wealth,  were  they  not  brought  to  lean  on  him  with  trustful 
pride :  and  even  among  seeming  equals,  the  impetuous 
quieted  by  the  thoughtful,  and  the  timid  finding  shelter 
with  the  brave.  That  there  "  are  diversities  of  gifts  "  is 
the  reason  why  there  "  is  one  spirit :"  and  it  is  because  one 
is  reliable  for  knowledge,  and  another  for  resolve,  and  a 
third  for  the  graces  of  a  balanced  mind,  that  all  are  held  in 
the  bonds  of  a  pure  affection. 

The  same  principle  distinguishes  natural  society  from 
artificial  association.  The  former,  springing  from  the  im- 
pulse of  human  feeling,  brings  together  elements  that  are 
unlike  :  the  latter,  directed  to  specific  ends,  combines  the 
like.  The  one,  completing  defect  by  redundance,  and  com- 
pensating redundance  by  defect,  produces  a  real  and  living 
unity :  the  other,  multiplying  a  mere  fraction  of  life  by 
itself,  retires  further  and  further  from  any  integral  good, 
and  results  only  in  exaggerated  partiality.  I  do  not  suppose 
that  society  arises,  as  some  philosophers  represent,  from  the 
sense  of  individual  weakness,  and  the  desire  for  consolidated 
strength  ;  but,  it  must  be  owned,  the  instinctive  propensities 
of  mankind  create  nearly  the  same  natural  classes,  as  if  it 
were  so.  The  first  social  group  would  contain  a  selection 
of  the  elements  least  able  to  subsist  apart,  and  most  com- 
pact when  thrown  into  a  system.  We  all  look  with  in- 
voluntary admiration  on  the  gifts  and  excellences  which 
are  wanting  in  ourselves :  and  so,  ignorance  is  drawn  to 
knowledge,  and  artlessness  resorts  to  skill ;  thought  is  as- 
tonished at  the  achievements  of  action,  and  action  wonders 
at  the  mysteries  of  thought ;  the  irresolute  trust  the  cour- 
ageous, and  all  find  a  refuge  in  the  noble  and  the  just.  So 
long  as  personal  qualities  and  spontaneous  attractions  de- 
termine.the  sorting  of  mankind,  they  will  dispose  themselves 
in  classes,  containing  each,  in  rugged  harmony,  the  element- 
ary materials  of  our  humanity.  And  when  discord  arises, 
it  is  from  the  presence  of  too  many  similar  elements,  which 


880  LOOKING    UP,    AND   LIFTING    UP. 

have  no  respect  for  one  another,  no  mutual  want,  no  re- 
ciprocal helpfulness,  and  which  cannot  therefore  coexist 
without  risk  of  dissension.  Say  what  you  will,  nature  is 
no  democrat,  but  filled  throughout  with  the  most  indisputa- 
ble ranks :  and  it  is  only  in  proportion  as  we  recede  from 
the  natural  affections,  and  enter  upon  the  life  of  isolated 
self-will,  that  dreams  of  social  equality  take  the  place  of 
the  reality  of  social  obedience. 

Now  the  assortments  of  an  old  civilization  follow  a  law 
precisely  the  reverse  of  that  which  we  have  ascribed  to  the 
Providential  rule.  It  unites  all  elements  that  are  like,  and 
separates  the  unlike.  Instead  of  throwing  men  into  har- 
monious groups,  it  analyzes  them  into  distinct  classes ;  con- 
ferring upon  each  sort  of  human  being  a  kind  of  charter 
of  incorporation;  giving  them  something  of  a  collective 
will,  a  feeling  for  their  order,  and  a  conscious  pursuit  of  its 
special  ends.  The  mutual  dependence  of  differently  en- 
dowed men  is  not  indeed  destroyed  or  even  lessened  ;  but 
it  is  shifted  from  the  individual  to  the  class.  Where,  before, 
person  was  helpful  to  person,  nation  now  supplies  the  want 
of  nation,  and  one  mass  of  labor  fills  up  the  deficiency  of 
another.  This  makes  the  greatest  difference  in  the  whole 
moral  structure  of  human  life.  The  contact  of  the  dissimilar 
elements,  I  need  not  say,  is  much  less  close  :  vast  circles, 
embracing  collections  of  men,  hang  upon  one  another ;  but 
not  the  people  within  them,  taken  one  by  one.  The  daily 
life  of  each  is  passed  in  the  presence,  not  of  his  unequals, 
but  of  his  equals.  He  lives  within  his  class :  he  mixes  with 
those  who  have  much  that  he  possesses,  and  little  that  he 
wants :  and  who  in  their  turn  want  little  that  he  can  give, 
and  much  of  which  he  is  empty.  He  finds  his  own  feelings 
repeated,  his  own  tastes  confirmed,  his  own  judgments  de- 
fended, his  own  type  of  wisdom  reproduced ;  and  becoming 
an  adept  in  the  characteristics  of  his  order,  he  misses  the 
perfection  of  his  nature.  He  is  esteemed  in  proportion  as 
he  exaggerates  the  peculiarities  of  his  class ;  and  he  ceases 


LOOKING   UP,    AND    LIFTING   UP.  381 

to  be  its  model  and  its  idol,  the  moment  he  seeks  to  infuse 
into  it  the  elements  of  some  foreign  wisdom,  and  treats 
with  respect  the  depositary  of  some  opposing  truth.  How 
completely  this  association  by  sympathy  has  taken  place  of 
association  by  difference,  is  plain  to  all  who  look  upon  the 
world  with  open  eyes.  Only  those  who  are  of  the  same 
sect,  of  equal  rank,  of  one  party,  of  kindred  pursuit,  of 
pretty  equal  knowledge,  and  concurrent  tastes,  are  found 
often  in  the  same  society.  In  education,  the  graduated 
distribution  of  nature  is  entirely  broken  up ;  all  the  boys 
collected  into  one  set,  all  the  girls  into  another;  and  the 
several  ages,  combined  in  the  system  of  Providence,  are 
separated  by  the  arrangements  of  man.  Everywhere, 
mechanism  and  economy  are  substituting,  over  our  world, 
the  classifications  of  an  encampment  for  the  organism  of  a 
home. 

I  am  far  from  supposing  that  all  this  is  entirely  evil.  It 
is  a  noble  distinction  of  civilized  above  barbarous  man,  that 
he  can  bear  the  habitual  presence  of  others  like  himself, 
without  a  coercion  always  suspended  over  his  passions ;  can 
sympathize  with  them,  and  join  in  hearty  fraternity  for 
common  ends  of  good.  To  live  among  our  equals  teaches, 
without  doubt,  the  twofold  lesson  of  self-reliance  and  self- 
restraint  :  it  enforces  a  respect  for  others'  rights,  and  a 
vigilant  guardianship  of  our  own :  it  substitutes  prudence 
for  impulse ;  and  trains  the  sentiments  of  justice  and  ve- 
racity. But,  while  it  invigorates  the  energies  of  purpose, 
it  is  apt  to  blight  the  higher  graces  of  the  mind;  and,  in 
confirming  the  moralities  of  the  will,  to  impair  the  devout- 
ness  of  the  affections.  A  man  always  among  his  equals  is 
like  the  schoolboy  at  his  play ;  whose  eager  voice,  and  dis- 
putatious claim,  and  bold  defiance  of  the  wrong,  and  merci- 
less derision  of  the  feeble,  betray  that  self-will  is  wide  awake, 
and  pity  lulled  to  sleep.  But  see  the  same  child  in  his  home  : 
and  the  genial  laugh,  the  deferential  look,  the  hand  of 
generous  help,  the  air  of  cheerful  trust,  show  how,  with 


382  LOOKING   UP,   AND  LIFTING   UP. 

beings  above  and  others  beneath  him,  he  can  forget  himself 
in  gentle  thoughts  and  quiet  reverence.  And  so  it  is  with 
us  all.  The  world  is  not  given  to  us  as  a  play-ground  or 
a  school  alone,  where  we  may  learn  to  fight  our  way  upon 
our  own  level,  and  leave  others  scope  for  a  fair  race ;  but 
as  a  domestic  system,  surrounding  us  with  weaker  souls  for 
our  hand  to  succor,  and  stronger  ones  for  our  hearts  to 
serve.  If  the  one  set  of  relations  is  needful  for  the  forma- 
tion of  manly  qualities,  it  is  the  other  that  gives  occasion 
to  the  divine.  And  if  in  our  own  day  and  our  own  class, 
the  moral  and  intellectual  elements  of  character  have  be- 
come completely  and  deplorably  ascendant  over  the  religious ; 
if,  in  our  honor  for  truth  and  justice  as  realities,  we  have 
got  to  think  all  piety  a  dream  ;  if  life,  in  becoming  a  vigor- 
ous work,  has  ceased  to  be  a  holy  worship  ;  if  its  tasks  are 
done,  and  its  mysteries  forgotten,  and  in  being  occupied  by 
our  will  it  is  emptied  of  our  God :  if,  in  the  better  rule  of 
our  finite  lot,  we  forget  to  serve  its  Infinite  Disposer; — it 
is,  in  part,  because  we  live  too  exclusively  with  our  equals ; 
the  weak  herding  with  the  weak,  the  strong  meeting  with 
the  strong ;  the  rich  surrounding  themselves  with  the  rich, 
and  the  taught  fearing  the  more  taught.  We  associate 
with  those  who  think  our  thought,  feel  our  feelings,  live  our 
life ;  we  read  the  books  which  repeat  our  tastes,  justify  our 
opinions,  confirm  our  admirations  ;  we  encourage  each  other 
in  laughing  at  the  excellence  to  which  we  are  blind,  and 
disbelieving  the  truth  to  which  we  have  never  opened  our 
reason,  and  shuffling  away  from  the  affections  and  obliga- 
tions to  which  we  have  a  distaste.  And  thus  our  existence 
shrinks  into  a  miserable  egoism :  the  theatre  on  which  we 
stand  is  surrounded  by  mirrors  of  self-repetition ;  and  we 
render  it  impossible  to  escape  the  monotonous  variety  of  the 
poor  personal  image. 

Now,  to  break  this  degrading  moral  illusion,  we  have  only 
to  study  and  adopt  the  grouping  of  the  Christian  life  ;  which 
corrects  the  classifications  of  our  artificial  state,  by  restoring 


LOOKING  UP,  AND   LIFTING   UP.  383 

the  arrangements  of  nature.  The  faith  of  Christ  throws 
together  the  unlike  ingredients  which  civilization  had  sifted 
out  from  one  another.  Every  true  church  reproduces  the 
unity  which  the  world  had  dissolved  ;  and  for  the  precarious 
cohesion  of  similar  elements  substitutes  again  the  attraction 
of  dissimilar.  This  is  done  not  merely  by  placing  us  all,  as 
responsible  agents,  in  the  same  venerable  relations,  and 
so  streno^theninoj  the  bonds  of  earnest  brotherhood.  This 
also  is  a  noble  and  humanizing  thing.  But  Christianity  has 
other  influences  operating  to  the  same  end.  The  moment 
a  man  becomes  a  disciple^  his  exclusive  self-reliance  vanishes  : 
the  rigid  lines  of  his  mere  manly  posture  become  softened. : 
he  trusts  another  than  himself :  he  loves  a  better  spirit  than 
his  own  ;  and,  while  living  in  what  is  human,  aspires  to 
what  is  divine.  And  in  this  new  opening  of  a  world  above 
him,  a  fresh  light  comes  down  upon  the  world  beneath  him: 
the  infinite  glory  of  the  heaven  reveals  the  infinite  sadness 
there  is  on  earth.  Standing  no  longer  on  his  own  level,  as 
if  that  were  all,  he  feels  himself  in  the  midst,  between  a 
higher  existence  to  which  he  would  attain,  and  a  lower  to 
which  he  would  give  help.  Aspiration  and  pity  rush  into 
his  heart  from  opposite  directions:  he  forgets  himself:  the 
stiff  strong  footing  taken  by  his  will  gives  way ;  and  he  is 
mellowed  into  the  attitudes  of  looking  up  and  lifting  up. 
These,  it  always  appears  to  me,  are  the  two  characteristic 
postures  of  the  Christian  life  ;  without  w^hich  our  minds, 
whatever  their  opinions,  are  empty  of  all  religious  element, 
and  our  hearts,  though  still  humane,  lie  withered  in  atheistic 
death.  If  there  were  no  ranks  of  souls  wathin  our  view ; 
if  all  were  upon  a  platform  of  republican  equality ;  if  there 
were  but  a  uniform  citizenship  of  spirits,  and  no  royalty 
of  goodness,  and  no  slavery  to  sin  ;  if  nothing  unutterably 
great  subdued  us  to  allegiance,  and  nothing  sad  and  shame- 
ful roused  us  to  compassion ;  —  I  believe  that  all  divine 
truth  would  remain  entirely  inaccessible  to  us,  and  our 
existence  would  be  reduced  to  that  of  intelligent  and  ami- 


384  LOOKING   UP,   AND   LIFTING    UP. 

able  animals  :  the  noblest  chamber  of  the  soul,  the  vault 
of  its  hidden  -worship,  remaining  locked,  the  corresponding 
region  of  the  universe,  the  hiding  place  of  thunder  —  the 
secret  dwelling  of  the  Almighty,  —  would  be  closed  against 
our  most  penetrating  suspicions.  And  as  the  arrangements 
by  which  we  stand  —  members  of  a  graduated  series,— 
with  beings  above  and  beings  below,  is  the  origin  of  faith  ; 
so  is  the  practical  recognition  of  this  position  the  great 
means  of  feeding  tlie  perpetual  fountains  of  the  Christian 
life. 

A  great  German  poet  and  philosopher  was  fond  of  de- 
fining religion  as  consisting  in  a  reverence  for  inferior  be- 
ings. The  definition  is  paradoxical :  but  though  it  does  not 
express  the  essence  of  religion,  it  assuredly  designates  one 
of  its  effects.  True,  there  could  be  no  reverence  for  lower 
natures,  were  there  not,  to  begin  with,  the  recognition  of  a 
Supreme  Mind  :  but  the  moment  that  recognition  exists,  we 
certainly  look  on  all  that  is  beneath  with  a  different  eye.  It 
becomes  an  object,  not  of  pity  and  protection  only,  but  of 
sacred  respect ;  and  our  sympathy,  which  had  been  that  of 
a  humane  fellow-creature,  is  converted  into  the  deferential 
help  of  a  devout  worker  of  God's  will.  And  so,  the  loving 
service  of  the  weak  and  wanting  is  an  essential  part  of  the 
discipline  of  the  Christian  life.  Some  habitual  association 
with  the  poor,  the  dependent,  the  sorrowful,  is  an  indispen- 
sable source  of  the  highest  elements  of  character.  If  we 
are  faithful  to  the  obligations  which  such  contact  with  in- 
firmity must  bring ;  if  we  gently  take  the  trembling  hand 
that  seeks  our  guidance,  and  spend  the  willing  care,  and  ex- 
ercise the  needful  patience ;  —  why,  it  makes  us  descend, 
into  healthful  depths  of  sorrowful  affection  which  else  we 
should  never  reach :  it  first  teaches  us  what  it  is  to  wear 
this  nature  of  ours,  and  shows  us  that  we  have  been  men 
and  have  not  known  it.  It  strips  off  the  thick  bandages  of 
self,  and  the  grave-clothes  of  custom  ;  and  bids  us  awake  to 
a  life  which  first  reveals  to  us  the  death-like  insensibility 


AND   LIFTING   UP.  385 

from  which  we  are  emerging.  Yes ;  and  even  if  we  are  un- 
faithful to  our  trust ;  if  we  have  let  our  negligence  have 
fatal  way  ;  if  sorrows  fall  on  some  poor  dependent  charge, 
from  which  it  was  our  broken  purpose  to  shield  his  head ;  — 
still,  it  is  good  that  we  have  known  him,  and  that  his  pres- 
ence has  been  with  us.  Had  we  hurt  a  superior,  we  should 
have  expected  punishment  from  him :  had  we  offended  an 
equals  we  should  have  looked  for  his  displeasure  ;  and,  these 
things  once  endured,  the  crisis  would  have  been  passed. 
But  to  have  injured  the  weak,  who  must  be  dumb  before 
us,  and  look  up  with  only  the  lines  of  grief  which  we  have 
traced ;  —  this  strikes  an  awful  anguish  into  our  hearts  :  a 
cloud  of  divine  justice  broods  over  us,  and  we  expect  from 
God  the  retribution  which  there  is  no  man  to  give.  The 
rule  of  heavenly  equity  gathers  closer  to  us  than  before ; 
and  we  that  had  neglected  mercy  are  brought  low  to  ask  it. 
Thus  it  is  that  the  weak,  the  child,  the  outcast,  they  that 
have  none  to  help  them,  raise  up  an  Infinite  Protector  on 
their  side,  and  by  their  very  wretchedness  sustain  the  faith 
of  justice  ever  on  the  throne. 

The  other  half  of  Christian  discipline  is  of  a  less  sad  and 
more  inspiring  kind  ;  and  yet  scarcely  more  welcome  to  the 
vain  and  easy  and  self-complacent  heart.  There  are  those  who 
pass  through  life  Avith  no  greater  care  than  to  keep  in  good 
humor  with  themselves  ;  who  dislike  the  spectacle  of  any 
thing  that  greatly  moves  or  visibly  reproaches  them ;  who 
therefore  shun  those  that  know  more,  see  deeper,  aim  higher, 
than  themselves ;  who  are  ever  on  the  search,  not  for  correc- 
tion of  their  errors,  but  for  confirmation  of  their  prejudices ; 
not  for  rebukes  to  their  littleness,  but  for  praises  of  their 
greatness  ;  and  who  hurry  away  from  the  uneasiness  of  self- 
confession,  if  it  ever  begins  to  flow,  amid  the  mists  of  self- 
justification.  This  form  of  selfishness  may  not  be  utterly 
inconsistent  with  the  duty  on  which  I  have  insisted,  of  lift- 
ing up  the  beings  beneath  us :  but  it  is  the  direct  contrary 
of  the  other  portion  of  the  devout  life,  which  consists  in 

25 


386  LOOKING   UP,    AND   LIFTING  UP. 

looJcing  up  to  all  that  is  above  us.  It  is  the  more  needful 
to  guard  against  the  approach  of  such  a  temper,  because 
aspiratiop  is  more  easily  stifled  than  compassion.  Its  faint 
breathings  subside  through  mere  f orgetf ulness  :  *  but  the 
paroxysms  of  pity  can  be  quelled  only  by  an  active  self- 
ishness :  and  admiration  may  die  from  dearth  of  objects, 
while  sympathy  is  in  danger  rather  of  exhaustion  by  their 
multitude.  The  intercoui'se  with  suffering  which  sustains 
the  natural  spiiit  of  mercy  is  so  near  our  doors,  as  hardly 
to  be  avoided  w^ithout  compunction :  the  intercourse  with 
excellence  which  keeps  resolution  at  its  height  is  a  privilege 
so  rare  as  not  to  be  attained  without  an  effort.  Yet,  with- 
out it,  the  higher  elements  of  the  Christian  life  must  fatally 
decline.  The  soul  cannot  from  its  own  fuel  permanently 
feed  its  nobler  fires :  it  needs  at  least  some  stream  of  pure 
air  from  aloft  to  kindle  the  smouldering  thoughts,  and  make 
the  clouds  of  doubt  and  heaviness  burst  into  a  flame.  Only 
the  fewest  and  sublimest  natures,  —  bordering  almost  on  the 
perfectness  of  Christ,  —  can  remain  in  the  perpetual  pres- 
ence, though  for  ends  of  genuine  mercy,  of  infirm  or 
depraved  humanity,  without  a  lowering  of  the  moral  con- 
ceptions, and  a  depression  of  hope  and  faith.  And  by  a 
natural  retribution,  through  which  God  rebukes  every  par- 
tial unfaithfulness,  and  forbids  any  spiritual  grace  perma- 
nently to  grow  without  the  concurrent  culture  of  them  all, 
the  tone  of  pity  itself  must  gradually  sink  under  this  de- 
terioration ;  and  every  loss  from  the  enthusiasm  of  a  just 
devotion  brings  a  duller  shade  on  the  light  of  human  love. 
Hence,  the  anxiety  of  every  one,  in  proportion  to  the  noble 
earnestness  with  which  he  looks  on  life,  to  hold  himself  in 
unbroken  communion  with  great  and  good  minds  ;  never  to 
depart  long  from  the  touch  of  their  thought  and  the  witness 
of  their  career ;  but  to  intermingle  some  divine  light  of 
beauty  thence  with  the  prosaic  story  of  his  days.  He  knows 
that  the  upper  springs  of  his  affections  must  soon  be  dry,  un- 
less he  asks  the  clouds  to  nourish  them.     He  finds  that  the 


LOOKING   UP,   AND   LIFTING   UP.  387 

near  inspection  and  familiar  converse  of  wise  and  holy  men 
is  the  appointed  way  by  which  the  infinite  God  lifts  us  to 
himself,  and  draws  us  upward  with  perpetual  attraction.  They 
are  the  mediators  between  the  earth  and  heaven,  between  hu- 
man realities  and  divine  possibilities,  between  the  severities 
of  duty  and  the  peace  of  God  ;  compelling  us  -to  own,  how 
glorious  when  done  are  the  things  most  difficult  to  do ;  how 
surely  the  dreams  of  conscience  may  become  the  fixed  prod- 
ucts of  history ;  and  how  from  the  sighs  of  achievement 
may  be  composed  the  hymn  of  thanksgiving.  If,  therefore, 
"  there  be  any  virtue,  if  there  be  any  praise,"  whoever 
would  complete  the  circle  of  the  Christian  life  will  "  think 
on  these  things  : "  will  thrust  aside  the  worthless  swarm  of 
competitors  on  his  attention ;  in  his  reading  will  exclusively 
retain,  in  his  living  associations  will  never  wholly  lose,  his 
close  communion  with  the  few  lofty  and  faithful  spirits  that 
glorify  our  world  ;  and,  above  all,  will  at  once  quench  and 
feed  his  thirst  for  highest  wisdom,  by  trustful  and  reverent 
resort  to  Him  in  whom  sanctity  and  sorrow,  the  divine  and 
the  human,  mingled  in  ineffable  combination. 


XXXVIII. 
THE    CHRISTIAN    TIME-VIEW. 


1  Corinthians  vii.  29,  31,  32. 

but  this  i  say,  brethren,  the  time  is  short: — the  fashion  of  this 
world  passeth  away. — i  would  have  you  without  carefulness. 

Paul  said  this  with  a  meaning  which  cannot  now  be  re- 
stored to  the  words,  and  wliich  makes  them  one  of  the 
grandest  expressions  of  the  true  Christian  mind.  In  no 
vague  indeterminate  sense,  such  as  ours,  did  he  declare  the 
remainder  of  this  life  "sAor^;"  and  we  should  much  mis- 
understand his  feeling  here,  if  we  took  it  for  a  commonj^lace 
sigh  over  the  brief  lodgement  permitted  to  man  on  earth. 
It  was  not  that  he  thought  the  natural  term  of  our  presence 
upon  this  scene  too  slight  for  earnest  pursuit  and  resolute 
achievement;  not  that  he  preached  any  sickly  and  selfish 
indifferentism,  esteeming  our  days  too  transient  for  love, 
and  our  generation  too  perishable  for  faithful  service.  He 
had  no  idea  that  the  natural  term  would  be  completed,  or 
the  generation  run  itself  out.  Yet  he  felt  assured  that  he 
and  his  disciples  would  be  survivors  of  its  destruction  ;  and 
so  urges  on  them  pursuits  of  immeasurable  amplitude,  love 
of  a  passionless  depth,  and  the  service  of  none  but  eternal 
obligations.  Instead  of  thinking,  as  any  man  might  do, 
"Frail  tenants  are  we  of  this  solid  globe, — phantoms  that 
come  and  vanish  ;  leaving  nothing  permanent  but  the  forms 
of  human  things,  which  remain  while  the  beings  change,  and 
the  scene  over  which  we  are  passed  like  troops  of  successive 
apparitions  ;  "  —  the  Apostle  says,  "  My  friends,  we  should 
be  of  quiet  heart ;   we  alone  are  immortal  amid  perishable 


THE   CHRISTIAN  TIME-VIEW. 

things,  and  among  the  vain  shows  of  creation  remain,  the 
realities  of  God:  this  world,  though  it  seems  like  rooted 
adamant,  is  melting,  like  a  painted  cloud,  away ;  the  forms 
of  human  life,  the  structure  of  communities,  the  instinctive 
relations  of  mankind,  which  alone  appear  unchangeable,  are 
alone  about  to  cease ;  and  our  individual  being,  of  all  things 
seeming  the  most  precarious,  is  alone  incapable  of  death." 
Paul  actually  looked  around  him  with  the  persuasion,  that 
the  stable  products  of  histoi-y  by  which  he  was  environed, 
the  gigantic  institutions,  the  proud  traditions,  the  accumu- 
lated wealth,  the  disciplined  force,  the  heartless  slavery, 
that  lay  within  the  grasp  of  Roman  power,  existed  by  a 
feebler  tenure  than  the  sickliest  infant's  life :  he  looked  to 
see  them  all,  and  the  mighty  arm  that  held  them,  crumble 
into  sand  before  his  eyes.  A  strange  and  wondrous  expecta- 
tion this,  seen  from  our  point  of  view !  Afloat  upon  the 
tide  of  human  things,  in  that  poor  frail  skiff  of  a  Christian 
Church  which  he  took  to  be  an  ark  of  God,  how  could  he 
look  at  such  frowning  skies,  and  hope  to  ride  the  storm 
alone?  But,  in  truth,  it  was  no  common  tempest  that  he 
thought  to  see  :  rather  did  he  sail  on  in  the  belief,  that  the 
very  seas  of  time  beneath  him  were  about  to  sink  and  flee 
away ;  bearing  with  them  the  mighty  fleet  of  human  things 
into  nothingness  and  night ;  and  leaving  only  that  sacred 
ark  suspended  in  the  mid-heaven  of  God's  protection,  to 
grow  into  a  diviner  world.  Well  might  he  exhort  his 
disciples  to  disentangle  themselves  from  the  elements  about 
to  perish ;  to  disregard  the  perils,  and  forget  the  toils,  and 
transcend  the  anxieties,  that  beset  them.  Well  might  he 
remind  them  that  they  were  living  upon  a  scale,  that  made 
it  shameful  to  brood  on  these  things  like  an  eager  and  way- 
ward child  ;  that  they  might  live  in  obedience  to  their  lar- 
gest thoughts,  and  compute  their  way  as  through  the  first 
spaces  of  an  infinite  perspective ;  and  that,  to  minds  so 
placed,  nothing  was  so  fitting  as  a  serene  spirit  of  power ; 
quiet,  not  from  the  extinction,  but  from  the  doubling  of 


890  THE  CHRISTIAN  TIME-VIEW. 

emotion,  gathering  into  the  same  instant  the  feelings  of 
opposite  times,  and  making  "  those  that  weep  as  though 
they  wept  not,  and  those  tliat  rejoice  as  tliongh  they  rejoiced 
not,  and  those  that  use  this  world  as  though  they  used  it 
not ; "  and  all,  reposing  "  without  carefulness  "  on  the  will 
of  God,  seeing  bow  soon  "  the  fashion  of  this  world  passeth 
away." 

This  was  the  Apostle's  manner  of  regarding  life  :  and 
though  we  may  say  his  expectation  was  false,  we  may  doubt 
whether  any  man  since  has  had  one  half  as  true.  It  is,  at 
all  events,  unlike  the  error  of  our  lower  spirits,  and  arises 
from  a  mind,  not  too  short-sighted^  but  too  far-seeing,  for  the 
conditions  of  our  mortal  state.  It  rightly  answers  the  great 
problem  between  true  and  false  religion,  —  I  should  rather 
say  between  religion  and  no  religion,  —  '-'•  Which  is  the  per- 
manent reality,  life,  or  the  scenery  and  receptacle  of  life ; 
the  soul,  or  the  physical  objects  of  the  soul?"  Whoever 
deeply  feels  that  one  of  these  is  eternal,  must  see  the  other 
to  be  evanescent ;  for  the  duration  of  either  is  simply 
relative  to  the  other,  which  is  its  only  measure :  the  elonga- 
tion of  the  one  is  to  us  the  abbreviation  of  the  other  ;  and 
he  who  takes  an  absolute  stand  of  faith  on  the  stability  of 
either,  beholds  the  other  passing  into  nought.  To  dull  and 
heavy  souls,  —  nay,  to  the  lower  minds  of  all  men,  —  noth- 
ing seems  so  real  as  the  objects  of  the  senses,  nothing  so 
secure  as  the  material  forms  of  nature,  to  which  from  the 
first  every  human  life  has  stood  related  ;  and  in  proportion 
as  physical  science  confirms  this  habit  of  thought,  in  pro- 
portion as  masses  and  weights  and  mechanism  engage  us,  or 
the  laws  of  organization,  or  the  outward  conditions  of  social 
life,  are  we  oppressed  by  the  solid  sameness  of  these  things ; 
individual  existence  seems  the  sport  of  a  dead  fatalism, 
swallowed  up  by  the  hunger  of  an  insatiable  necessity.  To 
souls  like  that  of  Paul,  not  passive  and  recipient,  but  vivid 
and  productive,  —  souls  that  put  all  things  into  different 
attitudes  by  a  pure  act  of  meditation,  and  feel  how  the  uni- 


THE   CHRISTIAN  TIME-VIEW.  391 

verse  approaches  or  recedes  before  the  changing  ey6  of 
thought,  —  its  constancy,  nay  its  reality,  seems  purely  rela- 
tive :  it  lies  submissive  at  the  feet,  like  storm  and  calm 
before  the  eye  of  Christ :  the  primary  force  of  God's  crea- 
tion appears  to  be  the  free  spontaneous  soul ;  whose  exist- 
ence is  the  great  miracle  and  mystery  of  heaven ;  whose 
tendency  is  ever  towards  a  higher  life  ;  which  communes 
throu2:h  the  screen  of  outward  thinors  with  the  inner  mind 
of  God,  feeling  both  spirits  immortal,  and  only  the  veil 
between  condemned  to  drop  away.  And  just  in  proportion 
as  the  worshipper  stands  up  before  eternity  face  to  face, 
and  feels  it  there,  must  this  earth  and  its  time-relations 
shrink  beneath  his  feet,  till  he  rests  upon  a  point  that  soon 
will  vanish.  Paul,  wholly  absorbed  in  the  immensity  of 
existence,  could  by  no  means  measure  the  objects  of  exist- 
ence by  our  finite  rules  :  the  depth  of  his  perspective  put 
even  distant  things  into  his  foreground ;  and  if  this  be 
chronological  error,  it  comes  in  with  the  shadow  of  religious 
truth  :  the  delusion  is  scarce  distinguishable  from  the  inspi- 
ration of  the  prophet,  and  is  even  akin  to  the  perception  of 
God.  No  one  could  thus  look  the  earthly  into  nothing,  but 
by  filling  all  things  with  the  divine. 

It  was  not  then,  I  conceive,  the  historical  misapprehension 
about  the  end  of  the  world,  that  led  to  the  belief  of  human 
immortality :  it  was  the  intensity  of  the  belief  in  immor- 
tality, that  produced  the  idea  of  the  approaching  end  of  the 
world.  Tliis  is  apparent  in  a  way  by  which  you  may  always 
distinguish  a  primitive  from  a  derivative  doctrine :  the  for- 
mer is  everywhere  assumed,  and  appears  as  an  all-pervading 
and  unconscious /a^7/^  /  the  latter  is  frequently  argued  and 
expounded,  and  appears  as  an  avowed  opinion.  The  com- 
bination of  the  two,  however,  has  had  important  effects  on 
the  development  of  our  religion;  and  it  may  be  doubted 
whether,  without  it,  Christendom  could  ever  have  taken  to 
heart  that  solemn  sense  of  the  infinite  scale  of  human  life, 
which  is  the  great  characteristic  of  its  theory  of  existence. 


r)92  THE   CHRISTIAN   TIME-VIEW. 

Paul  kept  a  whole  generation  of  the  church  in  awful  and 
breathless  suspense ;  listening  for  the  approaching  j^eal  of 
doom,  till  earthly  sounds  fell  as  faint  unrealities  upon  their 
ear  ;  straining  their  vision  aloft,  as  through  a  long  watch- 
night,  for  the  sign  of  the  Son  of  Man  in  heaven ;  till  their 
footing  seemed  loosened  beneath  them,  and  the  landscape 
sank  into  the  dark  away.  Thus  alone,  I  believe,  could  the 
invisible  world  be  raised  into  the  great  reality  to  man.  The 
first  age  of  Christendom,  sequestered  from  all  else,  and  spent 
on  its  very  front,  obtained  a  divine  insight  that  has  not 
been  lost.  The  heavenly  breath  that  swept  across  the 
margin,  made  it  felt  how  the  heats  of  the  present  should 
be  cooled,  and  the  fever  of  the  passions  purified.  Our  poor 
minds  can  take  in  only  one  great  conception  at  a  time,  and 
must  be  left  alone  with  it  for  a  full  lifetime,  if  it  is  to  be 
incorporated  with  the  character,  and  ennoble  the  history, 
of  succeeding  ages.  Moreover,  great  religious  faiths  must 
be  the  visible  basis  of  practical  life  to  one  period,  ere  they 
can  be  rooted  in  the  acceptance  of  another:  and  had  not 
the  early  Christians  watched  their  hour  for  Christ,  their 
fellow-disciplfs  ever  after  would  have  fallen  asleep  in  the 
fatigues  of  this  world,  deaf  to  the  voice  of  its  divinest 
sorrows,  and  missing  the  angels  of  preternatural  strength. 
The  superstition  therefore  of  one  age  may  become  the  truth 
and  guidance  of  all  others. 

That  Christianity  did  really  give  an  infinite  enlargement 
to  the  scale  of  human  life,  and  that  this  is  one  of  its  great 
features,  is  conspicuous  enough  on  comparing  it  with  the 
religions  it  supplanted.  It  was  not  indeed  that  Pagan 
societies  were  without  the  conception  of  a  future :  but 
Christianity  first  got  it  cordially  believed.  Even  the  medi- 
tative philosophy  of  Greece  can  present  no  clear  instances 
of  hearty  and  deep  conviction,  except  in  Plato  and  his 
master ;  and,  whatever  we  may  tliink  of  the  rhetorical 
leanings  of  Cicero  in  the  same  direction,  the  practical 
earnestness  of   Rome  was  wholly   given   up,   for   want   of 


THE  CHRISTIAN  TIME- VIEW.  393 

higher  thoughts,  to  material  interests  and  outward  magnifi- 
cence. The  faint  and  spectral  fancies  of  a  possible  future, 
that  floated  before  the  mind  of  the  people,  scared  away 
no  crime,  tranquillized  no  passion,  disenchanted  no  instant 
pleasure.  They  lay  fevered  and  restless  beneath  the  broad, 
burning  orb  of  this  immediate  life,  drunk  with  hot  indul- 
gence, and  asleep  to  the  midnight  hemisphere  of  faith  which 
is  open  to  the  vigils  of  the  purer  soul.  Throughout  Chris- 
tendom, on  the  other  hand,  this  boundless  night-scene  of 
existence  has  been  the  great  object  of  contemplation  ;  has 
swallowed  up  the  day ;  has  reduced  the  meridian  glare  of 
life  to  an  exaggerated  starlight,  truly  seen  as  such  from 
more  central  positions  where  the  apparent  does  not  distort 
the  real.  The  difference  between  the  ancient  and  modern 
world  is  this  :  that  in  the  one  the  great  reality  of  being  was 
now  ;  in  the  other  it  is  yet  to  come.  If  you  would  witness 
a  scene  characteristic  of  the  popular  life  of  old,  you  must 
go  to  the  amphilheatre  of  Rome,  mingle  with  its  80,000 
spectators,  and  watch  the  eager  faces  of  senators  and  peo- 
ple :  observe  how  the  masters  of  the  world  spend  the  wealth 
of  conquest,  and  indulge  the  pride  of  power :  see  every  wild 
creature  that  God  has  made  to  dwell  from  the  jungles  of 
India  to  the  mountains  of  Wales,  from  the  forests  of 
Germany  to  the  deserts  of  Nubia,  brought  hither  to  be 
hunted  down  in  artificial  groves  by  thousands  in  an  hour : 
behold  the  captives  of  war,  noble  perhaps  and  wise  in  their 
own  land,  turned  loose,  amid  yells  of  insult  more  terrible 
for  their  foreign  tongue,  to  contend  with  brutal  gladiators 
trained  to  make  death  the  favorite  amusement,  and  present 
the  most  solemn  of  individual  realities  as  a  wholesale  public 
sport :  mark  the  light  look  with  which  the  multitude,  by 
uplifted  finger,  demands  that  the  wounded  combatant  be 
slain  before  their  eyes :  notice  the  troop  of  Christian  martyrs 
awaiting  hand  in  hand  the  leap  from  the  tiger's  den :  and 
when  the  day's  spectacle  is  over,  and  the  blood  of  two 
thousand  victims  stains  the   ring,  follow  the  giddy  crowd 


394  THE   CHRISTIAN  TIME- VIEW. 

as  it  streams  from  the  vomitories  into  the  street,  trace  its 
lazy  course  into  the  forum,  and  hear  it  there  scrambling  for 
the  bread  of  private  indolence  doled  out  by  the  purse  of 
public  corruption ;  and  see  how  it  suns  itself  to  sleep  in  the 
open  ways,  or  crawls  into  foul  dens  till  morning  brings  the 
hope  of  games  and  merry  blood  again ;  —  and  you  have  an 
idea  of  that  imperial  people,  with  their  passionate  living 
for  the  moment,  which  the  gospel  found  in  occupation  of 
the  world.  And  if  you  would  fix  in  your  thought  an  image 
of  the  popular  mind  of  Christendom,  I  know  not  that  you 
could  do  better  than  go  at  sunrise  with  the  throng  of  toiling 
men  to  the  hillside  where  Whitefield  or  Wesley  is  about 
to  preach.  Hear  what  a  great  heart  of  reality  in  that  hymn 
that  swells  upon  the  morning  air,  —  a  prophet's  strain  upon 
a  people's  lips  !  See  the  rugged  hands  of  labor,  clasped  and 
trembling,  wrestling  with  the  Unseen  in  prayer !  Observe 
the  uplifted  faces,  deep-lined  with  hardship  and  with  guilt, 
streaming  now  with  honest  tears,  and  flushed  with  earnest 
shame,  as  the  man  of  God  awakes  the  life  within,  and  tells 
of  him  that  bare  for  us  the  stripe  and  cross,  and  offers  the 
holiest  spirit  to  the  humblest  lot,  and  tears  away  the  veil 
of  sense  from  the  glad  and  awful  gates  of  heaven  and  hell. 
Go  to  these  people's  homes,  and  observe  the  decent  tastes, 
the  sense  of  domestic  obligations,  the  care  for  childhood, 
the  desire  of  instruction,  the  neighborly  kindness,  the  con- 
scientious self-respect ;  and  say,  whether  the  sacred  image 
of  duty  does  not  live  within  those  minds :  whether  holiness 
has  not  taken  the  place  of  pleasure  in  their  idea  of  life : 
whether  for  them  too  the  toils  of  nature  are  not  lightened 
by  some  eternal  hope,  and  their  burden  carried  by  some 
angel  of  love,  and  the  strife  of  necessity  turned  into  the 
service  of  God.  The  j^resent  tyrannizes  over  their  character 
no  more,  subdued  by  a  future  infinitely  great :  and  hardly 
though  they  lie  upon  the  rock  of  this  world,  they  can  live 
the  life  of  faith ;  and  while  the  hand  plies  the  tools  of  earth, 
keep  a  spirit  open  to  the  skies. 


THE   CHRISTIAN    TIME- VIEW.  395 

There  is  something  very  ennobling  to  human  character  in 
the  possession  of  a  large  time-mew :  and  its  effects  are  visi- 
ble in  many  cases  not  directly  religious.  Next  to  having  a 
noble  future  before  us,  is  it  well  to  have  a  wide  and  worthy 
past.  This  it  is  that  renders  the  old  man  venerable.  His 
actual  momentary  life  is  often  poor  and  sad  enough  :  the 
windows  of  sense  and  soul  shut  on  the  light  and  stir  of  the 
world  without,  and  the  avenues  choked  up  through  which 
the  interests  and  passions  of  the  hour  should  vibrate  to  his 
heart.  But,  while  shaded  from  the  dazzle  of  the  instant, 
the  tranquil  light  of  half  a  century  is  spread  beneath  his 
eye.  Many  a  gaudy  bubble  he  has  seen  rise,  and  glitter, 
and  burst ;  —  many  a  modest  good  take  secret  root  and 
grow.  Every  game  of  hope  and  passion  he  has  seen  played 
out,  and  for  every  passage  presented  on  the  living  stage 
can  find  a  parallel  scene  in  the  old  drama  whose  curtain 
never  drops.  The  heroes  and  the  wise  of  the  past  age, 
ideal  to  others,  were  real  to  him ;  his  familiars  are  among 
the  dead,  dear  yet  to  many  hearts;  and  as  he  explores 
again  that  silent  past,  and  climbs  once  more  its  consecrated 
heights,  and  loses  himself  in  its  sweet  valleys,  and  rebuilds 
its  fallen  fragments,  he  feels  something  of  an  historic  dig- 
nity, which  sustains  the  trembling  steps,  and  gives  courage 
to  the  sorrowful  decline.  And  so  is  it  too  with  family  rec- 
ollections. To  have  had  forefathers  renowned  for  honorable 
deeds,  to  belong  by  nature  to  those  who  have  bravely  borne 
their  part  in  life  and  refreshed  the  world  with  mighty 
thoughts  and  healthy  admiration,  is  a  privilege  which  it 
were  mean  and  self-willed  to  despise.  It  is  as  a  security 
given  for  us  of  old,  which  it  were  false-hearted  not  to  re- 
deem :  and  in  virtues  bred  of  a  noble  stock,  mellowed  as 
they  are  by  reverence,  there  is  often  a  grace  and  ripeness, 
wanting  to  self-made  and  bran-new  excellence.  Of  like  value 
to  a  people  are  heroic  national  traditions^  giving  them  a 
determinate  character  to  sustain  among  the  tribes  of  men, 
making  them  familiar  with  images  of  great  and  strenuous 


THE   CHRISTIAN   TIME-VIEW. 

life,  and  kindling  them  with  faith  in  glorious  possibilities. 
No  material  interests,  no  common  welfare,  can  so  bind  a 
community  together,  and  make  it  strong  of  Heart,  as  a  his- 
tory of  rights  maintained,  and  virtues  uncorrupted,  and 
freedom  won :  and  one  legend  of  conscience  is  worth  moi-e 
to  a  country  than  hidden  gold  and  fertile  plains.  It  is  but 
an  extension  of  the  same  influence  that  we  discern  in  the 
Christian  theory  of  life  :  only  that  it  opens  out  our  time- 
view  alike  in  the  future  and  the  past.  It  makes  both  our 
lineage  and  our  destiny  divine ;  proclaims  us  sons  of  God, 
and  heirs.  No  tie  can  so  fasten  on  us  the  feeling,  that  we 
belong  not  to  the  present,  and  that  we  degrade  our  nature 
whenever  we  live  for  the  passing  moment  only ;  that  we  are 
not  our  own,  but  the  great  Father  God's.  Our  lot  is  greater 
than  ourselves,  and  gives  to  our  souls  a  worth  they  would 
not  else  have  dared  to  claim.  Hence  the  humbleness  there 
always  is  in  Christian  dignity.  The  immortal  lot  infinitely 
transcends  our  poor  deserts :  how  we  are  to  grow  into  the 
proportions  of  so  high  a  life,  it  is  wonderful  to  think.  And 
yet,  though  it  be  above  us  always,  —  nay,  even  because  it  is 
above  us,  —  there  is  something  in  it  true  and  answering  to 
our  nature  still :  so  that,  having  once  lived  with  it,  we  are 
only  half  ourselves  —  and  that  the  meaner  half  —  without 
it.  The  infinite  burden  of  duty  which  good  hearts  are  con- 
strained to  bear,  is  tolerable  only  to  an  immortal's  strength. 
The  unspeakable,  imploring  homage  with  which  we  look  on 
truth  and  wisdom  and  greatness  in  other  souls,  is  but  sorrow 
and  servitude,  except  to  a  spirit  freed  with  an  eternal  love. 
The  Christian  hope  gives  peace  and  power  by  restoring  the 
broken  proportions  of  the  mind ;  and  tranquillizes  the  rest- 
lessness of  a  spirit  unconsciously  "  cabined,  cribbed,  con- 
fined." It  is  this  truthfulness  to  our  best  and  deepest  nature, 
—  the  power  we  receive  from  it,  the  quiet  we  find  in  it,  — 
that  gives  to  the  Christian  estimate  of  life  its  most  irresisti- 
ble persuasion  upon  the  heart.  For  my  own  part,  I  confess 
it  is  the  only  evidence  that  seems  to  give  me  true,  serene, 


THE   CHRISTIAN   TIME-VIEW.  397 

absolute  faith  ;  and  when,  in  lower  moods  of  thought,  I  am 
driven  to  cast  about  for  a  limited,  intellectual  ground  of 
trust,  and  become  a  disciple  according  to  argument,  I  some- 
times doubt  whether  I  do  more  than  fancy  I  believe. 

With  what  temper  then  does  this  great  faith  send  us  forth 
to  our  immediate  work  ?  —  With  the  assurance  that  the  true 
life  is  not  yet ;  that  nobler  forms  of  being  and  affection  are 
in  reserve  for  faithful  minds ;  that  the  present  derives  its 
chief  interest  and  vakie,  not  from  itself,  but  from  its  rela- 
tions. To  live,  in  short,  consists  not  in  enjoying  the  day 
and  forgetting  in  the  night ;  but  in  a  waking  conscience,  a 
self -forgetful  heart,  an  ungrudging  hand,  a  thought  ever 
earnest  for  the  truth  ;  in  a  perpetual  outlook  of  hope  from 
our  lower  point  upon  an  upper  and  infinite  glory.  We  need 
not  let  the  present  be  so  eclipsed  by  the  future,  —  we  need 
not  look  upon  its  scenes  or  upon  ourselves  as  so  mean  be- 
neath that  ulterior  resplendence,  —  that  life  now  should  be 
darkened  by  the  contrast,  instead  of  cheered  by  the  connec- 
tion. It  is  no  sad  lot  of  expiation  that  we  suffer,  no  pen- 
ance that  our  years  on  earth  perform,  purifying  by  tears  and 
mortification,  a  natural  disqualification  for  any  higher  state. 
On  the  contrary,  the  germs  of  the  immortal  growth  are 
within  us  now,  and  will  spring  up,  not  by  the  bruising  and 
crushing  of  our  nature,  but  by  its  glorious  opening  out.  We 
are  here  to  try  and  train  our  faculties  for  great  achieve- 
ments and  harmonious  residence  within  the  will  of  God. 
Nor  is  the  theatre  unworthy  of  our  best  endeavors.  Only 
let  us  not,  in  action  or  in  suffering,  sink  down  upon  the 
present  moment,  as  if  that  were  all.  Amid  the  strife  and 
sorrow  that  await  us,  let  us  remember,  that  the  ills  of  life 
are  not  here  on  their  own  account,  but  are  as  a  divine  chal- 
lenge and  godlike  wrestling  in  the  night  with  our  too  reluc- 
tant wills ;  and  since,  thus  regarded,  they  are  truly  evil  no 
more,  let  us  embrace  the  conflict  manfully,  and  fear  no  de- 
feat to  any  faithful  will.  When  all  is  well  with  us  in  this 
world,  let  us  not  forget  that  its  enjoyments  also  are  not  here 


398  THE  CHRISTIAN  TIME-VIEW. 

on  their  own  account :  the  cup  is  not  to  be  tossed  off  in 
careless  draughts.  They  too  stand  in  relation  to  the  affec- 
tions and  character  of  the  soul,  and  thence  derive  their 
truest  worth :  it  were  sin  to  take  them  to  our  selfish  sensi- 
bilities alone ;  and  they  must  warm  us  with  a  grateful  and 
a  generous  mind,  more  trustful  in  the  love  of  God,  more 
prompt  with  a  true  pity  for  man.  And  when  we  best  and 
most  strenuously  follow  the  obligations  of  our  career,  we 
can  permit  no  flutter  of  self-gratulation  to  disturb  the  quiet 
meekness  of  the  heart.  For  only  look  up  on  that  which  we 
dare  to  hope,  and  how  are  our  mightiest  achievements 
dwarfed.  All  insufficient  in  themselves, — poor  spellings- 
out  of  the  mere  alphabet  of  eternal  wisdom,  —  they  are  but 
signs  of  willing  pupilage,  —  the  upturned  look  of  a  disciple 
sitting  at  the  feet.  As  symbols  of  faith  and  service,  God 
will  be  graciously  pleased  to  accept  them  from  us ;  and  dis- 
cern in  them  the  early  essays  of  a  soul  that  shall  assume  at 
length  dimensions  more  divine. 


XXXIX. 

THE  FAMILY  IN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH. 


Ephesians  III.  14,  15. 

OUR  LORD  JESUS  CHRIST,  —  OF  WHOM  THE  WHOLE  FAMILY  IN  HEAVEN  AND 
EARTH  IS  NAMED. 

Jesus  was  never  so  much  one  with  his  disciples,  as  when 
he  was  no  longer  with  them  :  they  were  never  so  widely 
severed  from  him,  as  when,  with  unawakened  and  dim-dis- 
cerning heart,  they  lingered  around  him,  with  eyes  so  holden 
that  they  did  not  know  him.  The  nearest  in  person  may 
clearly  be  the  furthest  in  soul :  they  may  eat  at  the  same 
table,  and  moraing  and  night  exchange  the  greeting  and  the 
parting  look,  yet  each  remain  outside  the  spirit  of  the  other, 
—  severed  even  by  an  impassable  chasm,  to  which  the  earth's 
diameter  would  be  less  than  an  arm's  length.  But  where 
the  inner  being,  rather  than  the  mere  outer,  has  been  passed 
together,  and  we  have  found  in  some  fraternal  heart  the 
appointed  confessional  for  the  doubts  and  strife  and  sorrow- 
ful resolves  of  our  existence,  no  amount  of  land  or  water 
can  break  the  mutual  affiliation :  the  reciprocation  of  pity 
and  of  trust,  the  placid  memories,  the  joint  courage  to  bear 
well  the  solemn  weight  of  life,  which  enrich  a  present  love, 
may  consecrate  the  absent  too.  Nay,  distance  may  even 
set  a  human  life  in  truer  and  more  affectionate  aspect  be- 
fore us,  by  stripping  off  its  trivialities,  and  bringing  out  its 
essential  features,  and  urging  our  thought  to  conceive  it 
as  a  whole  from  its  beginning  to  its  close  :  and  in  the  want 
of  any  lighter  union,  w.e  fold  ourselves  in  the  embrace  of 


400  THE  FAMILY  IN   HEAVEN   AND  EARTH. 

the  same  divine  laws,  and  compassion  for  the  same  mortal 
lot. 

With  the  boldness  of  a  true  and  inspired  nature,  the 
Apostle  Paul  gives  an  immeasurable  extension  to  this 
thought ;  and  speaks,  with  incidental  ease  of  one  '•^  family^'' 
distributed  between  heave^  and  earth.  There  is,  it  seems, 
a  domesticity  that  cannot  be  absorbed  by  the  interval  be- 
tween two  spheres  of  being ;  —  a  love  that  cannot  be  lost 
amid  the  immensity,  but  finds  the  surest  track  across  the 
void;  —  a  home-affinity  that  penetrates  the  skies,  and  enters 
as  the  morning  or  the  evening  guest.  And  it  is  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  who  has  effected  this ;  —  has  entered  under  the 
same  household  name,  and  formed  into  the  same  class,  the 
dwellers  above  and  those  beneath.  Spirits  there^  and  spirits 
here^  are  gathered  by  him  into  one  group ;  and  where  before 
was  saddest  exile,  he  has  made  a  blest  fraternity.  Let  us 
observe  in  what  instances,  and  by  what  means,  the  spirit 
of  Christ  draws  into  one  circle  the  members  of  some  human 
society  separated  else  by  hopeless  distance. 

Members  of  the  same  home  cannot  dwell  together,  with- 
out either  the  memory  or  the  expectation  of  some  mutual 
and  mortal  farewell.  Families  are  for  ever  forming,  for  ever 
breaking  up ;  and  every  stroke  of  the  pendulum  carries  the 
parting  agony  through  fifty  homes.  There  is  no  one  of 
mature  affections  from  whose  arms  some  blessing  of  the 
heart,  —  parent,  sister,  child,  —  has  not  died  away,  and 
slipped,  not  as  once  into  extinction,  but  (chief  thanks  to 
the  Son  of  Man)  into  eternity.  All  we  who  dwell  in  this 
visible  scene  can  think  of  kindred  souls  that  have  vanished 
from  us  into  the  invisible.  These,  in  the  first  place,  does 
Jesus  keep  dwelling  near  our  hearts  ;  making  still  one  family 
of  those  in  heaven  and  those  on  earth. 

This  he  would  do,  if  by  no  other  means,  by  the  prospect 
he  has  opened,  of  actual  restoration.  Hopeless  grief  for 
the  dead,  in  being  passionate,  is  tempted  to  be  faithless  too : 
for  it  has  no  remedy  but  in  suffering  remembrance  to  fade 


THE  FAMILY  IN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH.     401 

away,  and  employing  the  gaudy  colorg  of  the  present  to 
jDaint  over  the  sacred  shadows  of  the  j^ast.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  most  distant  promise  of  a  renewed  embrace  is 
sufficient  to  keep  alive  an  unforgetful  love.  Come  where 
and  when  it  may,  after  years  or  ages,  in  the  nearest  or  the 
furthest  regions  of  God's  universe,  it  passes  across  our  minds 
the  vision  of  reunion  :  it  opens  a  niche  in  the  crypt  of  the 
affections,  where  the  images  of  household  memory  may 
stand,  and  gaze  with  placid  look  at  the  homage  of  our  sor- 
row, till  they  light  up  again  with  life,  and  fall  into  our  arms 
once  more.  It  matters  little  at  what  point  in  the  per- 
spective of  the  future  the  separation  enforced  by  death  is 
thought  to  cease.  Faith  and  Love  are  careless  time-keepers : 
they  have  a  wide  and  liberal  eye  for  distance  and  duration : 
and  while  they  can  whisper  to  each  other  the  words  "  Meet 
again,"  they  can  watch  and  toil  with  wondrous  patience,  — 
with  spirit  fresh  and  true,  and,  amid  its  most  grievous  loneli- 
ness, unbereft  of  one  good  sympathy.  And  since  the  grave 
can  bury  no  affections  now,  but  only  the  mortal  and  familiar 
shape  of  their  object,  death  has  changed  its  whole  aspect 
and  relation  to  us ;  and  we  may  regard  it,  not  with  passion- 
ate hate,  but  with  quiet  reverence.  It  is  a  divine  message 
from  above,  not  an  invasion  from  the  abyss  beneath ;  not 
the  fiendish  hand  of  darkness  thrust  up  to  clutch  our  glad- 
ness enviously  away,  but  a  rainbow  gleam  that  descends 
through  tears,  without  which  we  should  not  know  the  vari- 
ous beauties  that  are  woven  into  the  pure  light  of  life. 
Once  let  the  Christian  promise  be  taken  to  the  heart ;  and 
as  we  walk  through  the  solemn  forest  of  our  existence,  every 
leaf  of  love  that  falls,  while  it  proclaims  the  winter  near, 
lets  in  another  patch  of  God's  sunshine,  to  paint  the  glade 
beneath  our  feet,  and  give  "  a  glory  to  the  grass."  Tell  me 
that  I  shall  stand  face  to  face  with  the  sainted  dead ;  and, 
whenever  it  may  be,  shall  I  not  desire  to  be  ready,  and  to 
meet  them  with  clear  eye  and  spirit  unabashed?  Shall  I 
not  feel,  that  to  forget  them  were  a  mark  of  a  nature  base 

26 


402     THE  FAMILY  IN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH. 

and  infidel? — that  under  whatever  pleasant  shelter  I  may 
rest,  and  over  whatever  wastes  I  may  wander  as  a  wayfarer 
in  life,  I  must  bear  their  image  next  my  heart ;  —  like  the 
exile  of  old,  flying  with  his  household  gods  hidden  in  his 
mantle's  secret  folds?  That  the  gospel  leaves  undetermined 
the  period  and  place  of  restoration  ;  —  that  we  call  it  "  here- 
after "  and  know  not  when  it  is  ;  that  we  call  it  "  heaven  " 
and  know  not  where  it  is  ;  —  detracts  nothing  from  its  power 
to  unite  into  one  family  the  living  and  the  departed.  It 
is  the  oflice  of  pure  religious  meditation  to  thin  away  the 
partitions  of  time  till  they  vanish,  and  cast  a  zone  around 
space  and  enclose  it  all  within  the  mind  ;  to  feel  that  what- 
ever is  certain  must  be  soon,  and  whatever  is  real  must  be 
near  at  hand.  And  hence,  it  is  the  characteristic  of  Chris- 
tianity to  be  indifferent  as  to  the  time  and  locality  of  the 
events  in  which  it  excites  our  faith.  Content  with  scatter- 
ing great  and  transforming  ideas,  it  allows  every  kind  of 
misplacement  in  these  accidental  relations  ;  for,  if  true  por- 
tions of  the  invisible  are  given  to  our  belief,  what  matters 
the  disposition  into  which  our  thoughts  may  throw  them  ? 
Early  or  late,  near  or  far,  are  alike  in  the  eye  of  God,  and 
may  well  be  left  open  to  mutable  interpretation  from  the 
wants  and  affections  of  men.  Jesus  himself  spake  much, 
before  his  crucifixion,  of  his  reunion  with  his  disciples.  It 
was  his  favorite  topic  throughout  that  parting  night ;  —  the 
subject,  now  of  promise,  now  of  prayer;  —  the  vision  from 
which,  in  that  hour  of  anguish,  he  could  never,  for  many 
moments,  bear  to  part.  He  leaves  the  impression  that  it 
would  be  very  speedy ;  and  so  thought  the  apostles  ever 
after.  And  as  to  place,  his  expressions  fluctuate  somewhat 
between  here  and  there;  though  his  hearers  thenceforth 
looked,  and  looked  in  vain,  for  him  to  come  back  to  be  with 
them.  But  of  what  concern  was  this?  For  were  they  not 
ready  to  meet  him,  be  it  where  it  might?  Did  not  that 
hope  keep  alive  within  their  hearts  the  divine  and  gracious 
image  of  their  Lord,  and,  at  the  end  of  forty  years  of  vari- 


THE  FAMILY  IN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH.     403 

ous  toil,  still  evoke  it,  beaming  and  breathing  as  though  it 
were  of  yesterday  ?  Worlds  above  and  worlds  below ;  — 
mansions  are  they  all  of  the  great  Father's  house :  and  the 
disciples'  greeting  would  be  equally  blessed,  whether  the 
immortal  Galilean  descended  to  the  embrace  on  this  vesti- 
bule of  finite  things ;  or  summoned  them  rather  across  its 
threshold  into  the  presence-chamber  oi  the  Infinite.  And 
no  kss  indifferent  to  our  affections  are  the  localities  beyond 
the  grave.  Having  faith  that  the  lost  will  assuredly  be 
found,  our  souls  detain  them  lovingly  in  the  domestic  circle 
Btill,  and  own  one  family  in  heaven  and  on  earth.  We  may 
cease  to  ask,  in  which  of  the  provinces  of  God  may  be  the 
city  of  the  dead  ;  a  guide  will  be  sent,  when  we  are  called 
to  go. 

Such  and  so  much  encouragement  would  Christianity 
give  to  the  faithful  conservation  of  all  true  affections,  if 
it  only  assured  us  of  some  distant  and  undefinable  restora- 
tion. But  it  appears  to  me  to  assure  us  of  much  more  than 
this ;  to  discountenance  the  idea  of  any,  even  the  most  tem- 
porary, extinction  of  life  in  the  grave ;  and  to  sanction  our 
faith  in  the  absolute  immortality  of  the  mind.  Rightly  un- 
derstood, it  teaches  not  only  that  the  departed  will  live,  but 
that  they  do  live,  and  indeed  have  never  died,  but  simply 
vanished  and  passed  away.  It  opens  to  our  view  the  diviner 
sphere  of  Christ's  ascension,  wherever  it  may  be,  not  as  a 
celestial  solitude,  where  he  spends  the  centuries  alone  ;  but 
as  the  ever-peopling  home  of  men  and  nations,  where  pred- 
ecessors waited  to  give  him  welcome,  and  disciples  go  to 
call  him  blessed.  It  is  a  great  thing,  thus  totally  to  abolish 
the  idea  of  any  annihilation,  however  momentary,  in  death, 
and  to  reduce  it  to  simple  separation.  For  it  is  a  perilous 
and  even  fatal  concession  to  the  power  of  the  grave,  to  ad- 
mit that  it  holds  any  thing  in  non-existence,  and  absolutely 
cancels  souls ;  swallowing  up  every  trace  of  their  identity, 
and  necessitating  the  creation  of  another,  though  corre- 
sponding, series.    Once  let  an  object  of  deep  love  drop 


404  THE  FAMILY  IN  HEAVEN   AND  EARTH. 

into  that  abyss  and  sink  in  its  privative  darkness,  and  how 
shall  I  recover  it  again  ?  Faith  stands  trembling  on  the 
awful  brink,  and  with  vain  cries  and  broken  supplications, 
owns  herself  unequal  to  the  task :  for,  between  being  and  no 
heing^  who  can  fathom  the  infinite  depth  ?  The  very  creat- 
ure that  has  really  fallen  through  it,  scarcely  can  Omnipo- 
tence bring  back ;  though  it  produce  another  like  in  every 
feature,  giving  us  the  phantasm  and  not  the  essence.  But 
neither  to  God's  power  nor  to  our  faith,  does  death  present 
any  serious  perplexity,  if  it  be  only  the  migration  of  a 
spirit  that  does  not  cease  to  live.  Thus  regarded,  it  inter- 
poses nothing  but  physical  distance  between  us  and  the  ob- 
jects of  our  affectionate  remembrance.  While  we  poor 
wayfarers  still  toil,  with  hot  and  bleeding  feet,  along  the 
highway  and  the  dust  of  life,  our  companions  have  but 
mounted  the  divergent  path,  to  exphn-e  the  more  sacred 
streams,  and  visit  the  diviner  vales,  and  wander  amid  the 
everlasting  Alps,  of  God's  upper  province  of  creation.  The 
memorial  which  our  hand  affectionately  raised  when  they 
departed,  is  no  monument  to  tell  what  once  had  been  and  is 
no  more  ;  it  is  no  symbol  of  hopeless  loss ;  but  the  land- 
mark from  which  we  measure  off  the  miles  of  our  solitary 
way,  and  reckon  the  definite,  though  unknown,  remnant  of 
our  pilgrimage  :  and  as  the  retrospect  is  lengthened  out, 
the  prospective  loneliness  is  shortening  to  its  close.  And  so 
we  keep  up  the  courage  of  our  hearts,  and  refresh  ourselves 
with  the  memories  of  love,  and  travel  forward  in  the  ways 
of  duty  with  less  weary  step,  feeling  ever  for  the  hand  of 
God,  and  listening  for  the  domestic  voices  of  the  immortals 
whose  happy  welcome  waits  us.  Death,  in  short,  under  the 
Christian  aspect,  is  but  God's  method  of  colonization  ;  the 
transition  from  this  mother-country  of  our  race  to  the  fairer 
and  newer  world  of  our  emigration.  What  though  no  other 
passage  thither  is  permitted  to  all  the  living,  and  by  neither 
eye  nor  ear  we  can  discover  any  trace  of  that  unknown  re- 
ceptacle of   vivid  and  more  glorious  life?     So  might  the 


THE   FAMILY   IN   HEAVEN   AND   EARTH.  405 

dwellers  in  any  other  sphere  make  complaint  respecting  our 
poor  world.  Intensely  as  it  burns  with  life,  dizzy  as  our 
thought  becomes  with  the  din  of  its  eager  passions,  and  the 
cries  of  its  many  woes,  yet  from  the  nearest  station  that 
God's  universe  affords,  —  nay,  at  a  few  miles  beyond  its 
own  confines,  —  all  its  stormy  force,  its  crowded  cities,  the 
breathless  hurry  and  ferment  of  its  nations,  —  the  whole 
apparition  and  chorus  of  humanity,  is  still  and  motionless  as 
death ;  gathered  all  and  lost  within  the  circumference  of  a 
dark  or  illumined  disk.  And  silent  as  those  midnight 
heavens  appear,  well  may  there  be,  among  their  points  of 
light,  some  one  that  thrills  with  the  glow  of  our  lost  and 
immortal  generations  ;  busy  with  the  fleet  movements,  and 
happy  energies,  of  existence  more  vivid  than  our  own ; 
where,  as  we  approach,  we  might  catch  the  awful  voices  of 
the  mighty  dead,  and  the  sweeter  tones,  lately  heard  in  the 
last  pain  and  sorrow,  of  our  own  departed  ones. 

But  it  is  not  merely  the  members  of  the  same  literal 
home  that  Christ  unites  in  one,  whether  in  earth  or  heaven. 
He  makes  the  good  of  every  age  into  a  glorious  family  of 
the  children  of  God;  and  inspires  them  with  a -fellow-feel- 
ing, whatever  the  department  of  service  which  they  fill. 
Discipleship  to  Christ  is  not  like  the  partisanship  of  the 
schools, —  an  exclusive  devotion  to  partial  truth,  an  exag- 
geration of  some  single  phase  of  human  life.  Keeping  us 
ever  in  the  mental  presence  of  the  divinest  wisdom  and  in 
veneration  of  a  perfect  goodness,  it  accustoms  us  to  the 
aspect  of  every  grace  that  can  adorn  and  consecrate  our  nat- 
ure ;  trains  our  perceptions  instantly  to  recognize  its  influ- 
ence or  to  feel  its  want.  It  looks  with  an  eye  of  full  and 
clear  affection  over  the  wide  circle  of  human  excellence. 
Had  we  not  been  followers  of  one,  whose  thoughts  were 
often  deep  and  mystic,  showing  how  simplicity  touches 
upon  wonder,  and  wonder  elevates  simplicity ;  we  might 
have  overlooked  the  high  problems  of  our  life,  and  held  in 
light  esteem  the  souls  agitated  by  their  grandeur,  perhaps 


406  THE  FAMILY   IN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH. 

lost  in  their  profundity.  Had  we  not  sat  at  the  feet  of  One, 
before  whose  gentle  tones  and  patient  looks  the  shrinking 
child  and  the  repentant  woman  might  feel  it  a  safe  and 
healing  thing  to  stand,  we  might  have  despised  that  faith  of 
love  which,  in  being  feminine,  does  not  cease  to  be  manly, 
and  have  allowed  no  recess  of  honor  in  our  hearts  to  the 
apostles  of  meekness  and  mercy.  Had  we  not  heard,  from 
a  Master's  lips,  the  blighting  severities  before  which  Phari- 
sees and  hypocrites  flinched  and  stood  aghast,  we  might 
have  softened  unworthily  the  austere  claims  of  truth  and 
justice,  have  lost  the  healthy  horror  at  sin,  a^id  refused  our 
thanksgiving  to  the  patriots  and  prophets,  whose  flashing 
zeal  has  purified  the  atmosphere  of  this  world.  And  were 
it  not  for  the  words  so  infinitely  graceful,  and  prayers  of 
deepest  aspiration,  that  fell  from  the  Man  of  Sorrows,  the 
very  soul  of  Christendom  would  have  been  steeped  in  colors 
far  less  fair :  we  might  never  have  felt  how  soon  the  kindred 
fountains  of  sanctity  and  beauty  blend  together ;  and  have 
denied  to  the  poet,  as  the  priest  of  nature,  his  fit  alliance 
with  the  priest  of  faith.  But  thrown  as  we  are  into  rever- 
ence for  no  disproportioned  and  unfinished  soul,  we  cannot 
but  contract  a  catholic  sympathy  for  every  noble  form  as- 
sumed by  our  humanity.  Philosophy  and  art,  the  statesman 
and  the  bard,  the  reformer  and  the  saint,  all  take  their  place 
before  us  in  the  Providential  sphere,  and  in  proportion  as 
they  are  faithful  to  their  trust,  draw  from  us  an  admiring 
recognition.  We  see  in  them  selections  from  the  exhaust- 
less  inspiration  of  the  infinite  wisdom  ;  streaks  of  divine 
illumination,  rushing  in  through  the  cloud-openings  of  oui 
world.  No  genuine  disciple  can  be  sceptical  as  to  the  ex 
istence,  or  fastidious  in  the  acknowledgment,  of  any  true 
worthiness.  We  owe  it  largely  to  the  Author  of  our  faith, 
that  we  cannot  encounter  the  great  and  good  in  the  genera- 
tions of  the  past,  without  affectionate  curiosity,  and  even 
strong  friendship.  Christ,  himself  the  discerner  of  the  Sa- 
maritan's  goodness   and  the   alien's  faith,  has   called  the 


THE  FAMILY  IN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH.     407 

noble  dead  of  history  to  a  better  life  than  they  had  before, 
even  in  this  world :  their  memory  is  dearer ;  their  example, 
more  productive;  their  spirit,  more  profoundly  understood. 
Thus  is  there  a  fraternity  formed  that  disowns  the  restric- 
tions of  place  and  time ;  a  Church  of  Christ  that  passes  the 
bounds  of  Christendom  :  and  though,  in  the  general  chorus 
of  great  souls,  disciples  only  can  well  apprehend  the  theme 
and  put  in  the  words,  yet  the  glorious  voices  of  Socrates 
and  Plato,  of  Aleaeus  and  Pindar,  of  Aristides  and  Scipio, 
of  Antoninus  and  Boethius,  richly  mingle  as  preluding  or 
supporting  instruments,  filling  the  melody,  though  scarce 
interpreting  the  thought.  Nor  is  this  brotherhood  confined 
even  by  historic  bounds  :  it  spreads  beyond  this  sphere  and 
makes  one  family  in  heaven  and  earth.  The  very  faith  that 
the  honored  men  of  old  still  live,  and  carry  on  elsewhere 
the  appointed  work  of  faithful  minds,  unspeakably  deepens 
our  interest  in  them ;  forbids  us  to  sigh  after  them  as  irrecov- 
erable images  of  the  past ;  enrolls  them  among  our  contem- 
poraries ;  and  from  the  lights  of  memory  transfers  them  to 
the  glories  of  hope.  If  Pascal's  "  thoughts  "  are  not  half 
l^ublished  yet,  but  are  pondering  for  us  the  secrets  of  subli- 
mer  themes  :  if  Shakspeare's  genial  eye  is  withdrawn  from 
the  stage  of  life  only  that  it  may  read  the  drama  of  the 
universe :  if  Paul,  having  testified  for  what  a  Christ  he 
lived,  shall  yet  tell  us  with  what  a  gain  he  died  :  if  Isaiah's 
harp  is  not  really  silent,  but  may  fill  us  soon  with  the  glow 
of  a  diviner  fire  ;  —  with  what  solemn  heart,  what  reveren- 
tial hand,  shall  we  open  the  temporary  page  by  which, 
meanwhile,  they  speak  with  us  from  the  past !  Such  hope 
tends  to  give  us  a  prompt  and  large  congeniality  with 
them  ;  to  cherish  the  healthful  affections  which  are  do- 
mestic in  every  place  and  obsolete  in  no  time ;  to  prepare 
us  for  entering  any  new  scene,  and  joining  any  new  society 
where  goodness,  truth,  and  beauty  dwell. 

Even   this   wide  friendship  need   not   entirely  close  the 
circle  of  our  fraternity.     Beyond  the  company  of  the  great 


408     THE  FAMILY  IN  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH. 

and  good,  a  vast  and  various  crowd  is  scattered  round  :  no 
line  must  be  drawn  which  they  are  forbid  to  pass ;  some 
span  of  sympathy  must  embrace  them  too.  No  proud 
mysteries,  no  secret  initiation,  guards  the  entrance  to  the 
Christian  brotherliood  ;  even  wandering  guilt  must  be  sought 
for  and  brouglit  home ;  and  penitence  that  sits  upon  the 
steps  must  be  asked  to  come  within  the  door.  Christ  will 
not  remain  at  the  head  of  the  "  whole  family,"  if  its  forlorn 
and  outcast  members  are  simply  put  away  in  selfish  shame, 
and  no  gentle  care  is  spent  to  smooth  the  pathway  of  return. 
He  gives  to  some  a  present  joy  in  one  another :  he  denies 
to  none  a  hope  for  all.  The  alliance  of  our  hearts  is  itself 
founded  on  the  kindred  in  our  being :  and  is  but  the  actual 
result  of  affections  not  impossible  to  any.  The  affinities 
of  nature  lie  deeper  than  the  sympathies  of  taste ;  and 
should  be  accepted  as  guarantees  for  the  equal  tenderness 
of  God,  amid  the  alienations  of  our  foolish  passions.  And 
whoever  will  take  to  heart,  how  the  same  human  burthen 
is  laid  on  all,  and  the  divine  relief  so  nobly  used  by  some 
is  for  awhile  so  sadly  missed  by  more;  how  much  resem- 
blance lurks  under  every  difference  between  man  and  man; 
how  small  a  space  may  often  separate  the  decline  into 
grievous  failure  and  the  ascent  into  glorious  success ;  must 
surely  feel  the  yearnings  of  a  fraternal  heart  towards  all 
who  have  borne  the  earthly  mission  :  must  look  on  the 
aj^parition  and  disappearance  of  generation  after  generation 
on  this  scene  wilh  an  almost  domestic  regret  and  household 
pity  for  his  kind :  consoled  and  elevated  by  the  trust,  that 
men  and  nations  who  have  performed  the  parts  of  shame 
and  sorrow  here  are  trained  to  nobler  and  more  natural 
offices  elsewhere. 


XL. 

THE  SINGLE  AND  THE  EVIL  EYE. 


Matthew  vi.  22,  23. 

the  light  of  the  bory  is  the  eye:  if  thekefore  thine  eye  bk 
single,  thy  wholfi  body  shall  be  full  of  light  ;  but  if  thine 
eye  be  evil,  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  darkness.  if 
therefore  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness,  how  great  is 

THAT    darkness! 

Great  indeed !  because  it  not  only  hides  realities,  but  pro- 
duces all  kinds  of  deceptive  unrealities ;  to  the  blinding 
character  of  all  darkness,  adding  the  creative  activity  of 
light ;  suppressing  the  clear  outline  and  benign  face  of 
things,  and  throwing  up  instead  their  twisted  and  malignant 
shadows.  This  is  the  difference,  so  awfully  indicated  by 
the  greatest  of  Seers  in  the  words  just  cited,  between  the 
evil  ei/e,  and  no  eye  at  all.  The  latter  only  misses  what 
there  is :  the  former  surrounds  itself  by  what  is  not.  The 
one  is  an  innocent  privation,  that  makes  no  pretence  to 
knowledge  of  the  light :  the  other  is  a  guilty  delusion,  proud 
of  its  powers  of  vision,  and  applying  its  blind  organ  to  every 
telescope  with  an  air  of  superior  illumination.  The  one  is 
the  eye  simply  closed  in  sleep  :  the  other,  staring  with  night- 
mare, and  burning  with  dreams ;  whose  strain  the  gloom  of 
midnight  does  not  relieve,  and  whose  trooping  images  the 
dawning  light  does  not  disperse.  He  whose  very  light  has 
become  darkness,  treats  the  privative  as  positive,  and  the  posi- 
tive as  privative  ;  he  sees  the  single,  double,  and  the  double, 
single :  with  him  nothing  is  infinite,  and  the  infinite  is  noth- 
ing.    The  great  spectrum  of  truth  is  painted  backward,  and 


410  THE   SINGLE   AND   THE   EVIL   EYE. 

the  rainbow  of  promised  good  is  upside  down :  and  while 
he  cannot  espy  the  angel  standing  in  the  sun,  he  can  read 
the  smallest  print  by  the  pit-lights  of  Tophet,  that  threaten 
to  blind  the  spirits,  and  smoke  out  the  stars.  To  the  evil 
eye  the  universe  is  not  simply  hidden,  but  reversed. 

This  will  not  appear  strange  to  any  one  who  considers 
that  two  things  are  requisite  for  perception  of  any  sort ;  viz., 
an  object^  and  an  instrwnent^  of  perception ;  —  an  outward 
thing,  and  an  inward  faculty.  Sunshine  is  of  no  use  in  an 
eyelet  world ;  and  the  most  sensitive  retina  is  wasted  in 
the  dark.  The  impressions  we  receive  are  the  result  of  a 
relation  between  the  scene  by  which  we  are  environed,  and 
the  mind  with  which  we  survey  it :  take  away  either  term 
of  this  relation,  and  the  other  disappears.  In  like  manner, 
alter  the  character  of  either  term,  and  the  relation  ceases  to 
be  the  same.  The  sweet  may  become  bitter,  not  only  by 
chemical  changes  in  the  substance,  but  by  the  sick  palate  of 
the  taster.  And  if  it  were  the  Creator's  will  to  paint  afresh 
the  spectacle  of  his  works  visible  from  this  earth,  and  make 
the  heavens  green  and  the  grass  like  fire,  he  might  work  the 
miracle,  either  by  revising  the  laws  of  light  and  color,  or 
by  fitting  up  our  visual  power  anew,  and  tingeing  its  glass 
with  different  shades.  Nor  could  we  ever,  in  such  case, 
tell  which  it  was ;  our  consciousness  commencing  with  the 
effect  and  not  reaching  back  to  the  cause.  Just  as  it  would 
be,  if  all  our  measures  of  time  were  to  be  simultaneously 
accelerated  to  a  double  speed.  Under  such  conditions,  an 
apparent  revolution  would  take  place  in  the  duration  of  all 
phenomena.  It  would  seem,  that  human  life  had  resumed 
its  patriarchal  length,  and  all  recent  history  would  appear 
as  through  a  diminishing  medium.  Nor  indeed  is  it  any 
idle  fancy  that  such  changes  are  possible.  We  even  feel 
the  warning  touch  of  them  day  by  day:  and  their  faint 
breath,  like  a  passing  chill  trespassing  from  the  invisible, 
sweeps  by  and  leaves  an  awe  on  thoughtful  hearts.  If  self- 
forgetful   activity,  or   the   lively  commerce  of   mind  with 


THE   SINGLE   AND   THE    EVIL   EYE.  411 

miad,  can  dwindle  hours  into  minutes,  while  a  dull  and 
heavy  soitoav  may  protract  a  night  into  an  age  ;  if  the  dream 
of  a  few  instants  can  comprise  the  history  of  years ;  —  how 
evident  is  it  that  our  apparent  time,  which  is  our  real  life, 
stretches  or  shrinks  w^ith  the  variable  moods  of  the  mind; 
that  not  only  does  the  way  we  go  become  as  the  moist 
meadow  or  the  parched  desert,  according  as  we  gaze  through 
the  cool  lens  of  a  pure  health,  or  the  throbbing  eye  of  fever, 
but  by  the  quicker  or  slower  pace  of  thought,  we  may  be 
made  to  fly  across  the  soft  grass  of  our  refreshment,  or 
crawl  over  the  hot  sands  of  our  torture ;  that,  by  only  such 
shifting  of  our  time-measures  as  occurs  in  each  night's  sleep, 
a  thousand  years  might  become  to  us  also  as  one  day,  or 
one  day  as  a  thousand  years  ;  that  thus  the  smallest  element 
of  joy  or  woe  might  be  multiplied  into  infinite  value,  and 
a  heaven  or  hell  be  constructed  from  the  feeling  dropped 
by  a  moment's  passing  wing!  Here,  at  least,  the  veil  of 
tender  mercy  becomes  transparent,  which  alone  screens  us 
from  a  lot  more  terrible  than  death. 

So  far  however  as  our  views  of  things  are  determined  by 
the  endowments  conceded  to  our  nature,  we  accept  them 
with  a  calm  content.  We  know  indeed  that  God  might 
have  made  us  otherwise,  and  so  have  set  quite  a  different 
universe  before  us :  nor  have  we  the  smallest  power  of  com- 
paring that  possible  system  of  jjhenomena  with  this  actual, 
so  as  to  demonstrate  which  of  them  may  best  agree  with  the 
truth  of  things.  This  is  a  matter  w^hich,  like  all  the  founda- 
tions of  our  being,  must  rest  on  faith :  it  is  one  of  our  very 
roots,  w^hich  we  cannot  manufacture  for  ourselves  in  the 
dry  light;  —  which  we  cannot  even  scrape  up  to  look  at, 
how  it  lives  ;  —  but  which  insists  on  growing  down  into  the 
darkness,  and  spreading  its  fibres  through  the  subsoil  of 
nature.  It  is  plain,  that  if  our  faculties  were  in  themselves 
incapable  and  deceptive ;  or  if  they  were  hopelessly  vitiated 
by  secret  and  resistless  causes,  —  there  would  be  no  help 
for  us.     We  could  no  more  lift  ourselves  above  our  illusions 


412  THE   SINGLE   AND   THE   EVIL   EYE. 

and  perversions,  than  the  ape  could  raise  himself  into  a  man, 
or  the  man  into  an  angel.  We  cannot  issue  from  ourselves, 
and  alight  upon  a  station  outside  our  own  nature :  that 
nature  is  with  us  when  we  judge  it,  and  does  but  pass 
sentence  on  itself.  We  cannot  think  of  the  laws  of  thought, 
but  by  remaining  within  them ;  or  estimate  what  we  know, 
except  as  an  element  of  knowledge.  However  often  the 
drop  may  turn  itself  inside  out,  and  circulate  its  particles 
from  centre  to  surface,  and  from  pole  to  pole,  it  remains 
the  same  constant  sphere,  reflecting  the  same  vault  that 
hangs  over  it,  and  yielding  to  the  same  attractions  stirring 
within  it.  And  while  there  would  be  no  help  for  such 
human  incapacity,  there  could  be  no  consciousness  of  it. 
To  be  conscious  of  it,  would  be  to  escape  it, — to  have  a 
rule  of  judgment  exempted  from  its  operation ;  for  he  who 
sees  that  lie  has  missed  the  truth,  misses  it  no  more.  Faith 
therefore  in  our  own  faculties,  as  God  has  given  them,  is  at 
the  very  basis  of  all  knowledge  and  belief,  on  things  human 
or  divine  ;  —  an  act  of  primitive  religion,  so  inevitable  that 
without  it  scepticism  itself  cannot  even  begin,  but  wanders 
about  through  the  inane,  in  fruitless  search  for  a  point  on 
which  to  hang  its  first  sophistic  thread.  And  each  one  of 
our  natural  powers  is  to  be  implicitly  trusted  within  its  own 
sphere,  and  not  beyond  it :  the  senses,  as  reporters  of  tho 
outward  world ;  the  understanding,  in  the  ascertainment 
of  laws  and  the  interpretation  of  nature ;  the  reason  and 
conscience,  in  the  ordering  of  life,  the  discernment  of  God, 
and  the  following  of  religion.  Whoever  tries  to  shake  their 
authority,  as  the  ultimate  appeal  in  their  several  concerns, 
though  he  may  think  himself  a  saint,  is  in  fact  an  infidel. 
Whoever  pretends  that  any  thing  can  be  above  them,  —  be 
it  a  book  or  a  church,  —  is  secretly  cutting  up  all  belief  by 
the  roots.  Whoever  tells  me  that  prophet  or  apostle  set 
himself  above  them,  and  contradicted,  instead  of  reverently 
interpreting  and  rendering  audible,  the  whispers  of  the 
highest  soul,  is  chargeable  with  fixing  on  the  messengers  of 


THE    SINGLE   AND   THE   EVIL- EYE.  413 

God  the  sure  sign  of  imposture  or  of  wildness.  Tb  tell  me, 
with  warnings  against  my  erring  faculties,  that  a  thing  is 
divine  which  offends  my  devoutest  perception  of  the  true 
and  holy ;  —  as  well  might  you  persuade  me  to  admire  the 
sweetness  of  a  discord  by  abusing  my  sense  of  hearing,  or 
to  prefer  a  signboard  to  a  Raphael  by  enumerating  optical 
illusions  and  preaching  on  the  imperfections  of  sight.  Amid 
the  clamor  of  dissonant  theologies,  let  us  sit  then,  with  a 
composed  love,  at  the  feet  of  him  who  pointed  to  the  way, 
—  which  no  doubt  can  darken  and  no  knowledge  close,  — 
of  seeing  God  through  purity  of  heart.  That  clear  and 
single  eye,  filling  the  soul  with  light ;  —  what  is  it  but  the 
open  thought  and  conscience  by  which  the  truth  of  heaven 
streams  in  ?  And  does  not  Jesus  appeal  to  this  as  our  only 
rescue  from  utter  darkness  and  spiritual  eclipse  ?  li  so, 
then  men  can  see  for  themselves  in  things  divine.  They 
are  not  required  to  take  on  trust  a  rule  of  life  and  faith,  in 
which  they  would  discern  no  authority  and  feel  no  confi- 
dence, were  it  not  for  the  seal  it  professes  to  carry,  and  the 
affidavit  with  which  it  is  superscribed.  A  system,  indeed, 
befriended  on  the  mere  strength  of  its  letters  of  recom- 
mendation misses  every  thing  divine.  A  rule  which  cannot 
authorize  itself  is  no  rule  of  duty,  no  source  of  obligation  ; 
but,  at  best,  only  a  maxim  of  policy  and  instruction  to  self- 
interest.  Till  it  touches  us  with  its  internal  sanctity  and 
excellence,  and  we  can  no  longer  neglect  it  without  shame 
and  remorse  as  well  as  fear,  our  adoption  of  it  is  not  moral, 
but  mimetic :  we  imitate  the  things  which  may  be  duty  to 
persons  who  have  a  conscience,  but  which  are  no  duty  to 
us.  If  Christ  alone  had  personal  and  first-hand  discernment 
of  the  truth  and  authority  of  Christianity,  and  all  other  men 
have  to  take  it  solely  on  his  word,  then  Christianity  wholly 
ceases  to  be  a  religion,  and  the  compliance  with  it  becomes 
a  mere  simial  observance  of  the  movements  of  a  great 
posture-master  of  the  soul.  It  is  as  if  God  had  sent  one 
solitary  being  gifted  with  eyesight  into  a  world  of  the  blind. 


414  THE   SINGLE   AND   THE   EVIL   EYE. 

to  teach  them  to  act  as  though  they  could  see;  groping 
about  in  dark  places  and  shading  their  faces  in  a  blaze :  in 
which  case,  the  actions,  proceeding  from  no  vision,  would 
have  no  meaning,  and  though  displaying  docility,  would 
border  on  foolishness  and  hypocrisy.  Turn  the  matter  as 
we  may,  it  will  appear  that  the  fullest,  most  unqualified 
admission  of  a  moral  and  rational  nature  in  man,  whose 
decisions  no  external  power  can  overrule,  and  which  con- 
stitutes God's  ever  open  court  for  trying  the  claims  of 
scripture  and  prophecy,  no  less  than  of  philosophy,  is  the 
prime  requisite  of  all  devout  faith ;  without  which,  duty 
loses  its  sacredness,  revelation  its  significance,  and  God  him- 
self his  authority. 

Though,  however,  our  first  act  of  faith  must  be  an  im- 
plicit trust  in  the  powers  through  which  alone  divine  things 
are  apprehensible  by  us,  it  must  be  a  trust  in  the  intrinsic 
nature  which  God  has  given  them,  not  in  the  actual  state  to 
which  we  may  have  reduced  them.  They  are  liable  to  the 
same  law  as  the  inferior  endowments  which  connect  us  with 
material  things ;  attaining  clearness  and  precision  with  f;iith- 
ful  use ;  vitiated  and  discolored  by  abuse ;  benumbed  and 
confused  by  disuse.  The  eye  that  had  been  long  closed  in 
privation  opened  at  first  with  so  little  discernment  as  to  see 
"  men  like  trees,  walking."  And  the  soul  shut  up  from 
earnest  meditation,  and  drowsy  amid  the  heavenly  light  to 
which  it  should  direct  its  patient  gaze,  is  likely  to  see  God, 
like  Fate,  sleeping ;  or,  like  a  ghost,  unreal ;  or,  like  the 
master-builder,  retreating  from  the  ship  he  has  launched 
upon  the  waves ;  or,  like  the  spectrum  of  the  sun,  a  patch 
of  darkness  perforating  the  heavens,  where  once  looked 
forth  a  glorious  orb,  "  of  this  great  world  both  eye  and 
soul."  Surely  it  is  a  truth  of  personal  experience,  that  our 
views  of  God,  of  the  life  we  live,  of  the  world  we  occupy, 
materially  change  according  to  the  caprices  of  our  own 
mind.  When  the  spirits  are  sinking,  and  the  press  of  the 
world  arises  in  its  strength ;    when  the  will  trembles  and 


THE   SINGLE   AND   THE   EVIL  EYE.  415 

faints  beneath  its  load,  and  the  hours  seem  to  dash  exulting 
by  and  leave  us  at  a  cruel  distance ;  when  the  presence  of 
more  energetic  and  devoted  souls  fills  us  with  a  sorrowing 
reverence,  and  humbles  us  to  the  dust  with  self-reproach ; 
when  the  silent  shadow  of  lost  opportunity  sits  cold  upon 
us,  and  the  memory  of  misspent  moments  drips  upon  the 
sad  heart,  like  rain-drops  from  the  wintry  boughs ;  —  then, 
no  peace  of  God,  no  tranquil  order  of  life,  no  free  and  open 
affection,  seems  possible  again :  the  bow  of  hope  has  fled 
from  heaven,  and  the  green  sod  of  the  earth  is  elastic  to  our 
feet  no  more :  the  very  universe  seems  stricken  with  a  rod  of 
disappointment  that  has  turned  it  into  lead  :  and  Provi- 
dence either  vanishes  utterly  from  our  view,  or  appears  to 
us  as  a  hard  taskmaster,  that  lashes  a  jaded  strength,  and 
lays  on  us  a  burden  greater  than  we  can  bear.  At  other 
times,  when  perhaps  some  affliction  casts  us  down,  or  some 
call  of  arduous  duty  startles  us,  we  have  clearness  enough 
left  to  pray  with  a  mighty  and  uplifted  heart.  God  seems 
to  behold  the  silence  of  our  surrender,  and  snatches  us  up 
into  his  infinite  deliverance.  The  soul  retreats  within,  and 
sees  his  light :  it  spreads  without,  and  feels  his  power.  We 
can  put  our  heel  on  toil  and  fear,  and  move  over  them  with 
the  spring  of  resolution.  A  glory  spreads  over  the  clouds 
of  sorrow,  that  makes  them  majestic  as  the  serene  and  open 
sky :  they  hang  over  us  as  a  canopy  of  heavenly  fire,  the 
hiding-place  of  a  thunder  that  terrifies  us  not ;  or  as  the 
piled  mountains  of  a  sublimer  world,  in  whose  awful  valleys 
we  would  abide,  though  threatened  by  the  roar  of  the  ava- 
lanche, and  the  advancing  glacier  of  inevitable  death.  The 
things  so  huge  to  the  microscopic  eye  of  care  retreat  into 
infinite  littleness  before  the  sweep  of  a  more  comprehensive 
vision.  Whole  floods  of  trouble,  peopled  with  terrors, 
become  as  dew-drops  on  the  grass :  and  the  very  earth  itself, 
with  its  crowd  of  struggling  interests,  appears  as  a  calm  orb 
floating  in  the  deeps  of  heaven.  Moments  like  these  occur 
in  the  history  of  all  tried  and  faithful  minds ;  and  comprise 


416  THE   SINGLE    AND   THE   EVIL   EYE. 

within  them  a  larger  portion  of  existence  than  years  of  the 
eating,  drinking  and  sleeping,  the  bargaining  and  book- 
keeping, which  men  call  life.  They  are  the  beacons  and 
landmarks  of  our  spiritual  way,  often  remaining  visible  over 
long  reaches  of  our  career.  Nor  do  they  stand  alone,  to 
show  how  our  own  mood  affects,  for  better  or  worse,  the 
views  we  take  of  things  above  us.  Let  a  man  go  suddenly 
from  tlie  meal  of  luxury  to  the  deathbed  of  selfishness, 
where  no  love  lingers  and  tears  only  pretend  to  flow :  let 
him  pass  from  the  sense  of  animal  enjoyment  to  the  specta- 
cle of  animal  extinction  ;  —  and  he  will  inevitably  believe  in 
annihilation.  The  saintly  words  of  everlasting  hope  will  be 
as  a  strange  jargon  in  his  ears  :  the  death-rattle  on  the  bed 
will  put  out  all  the  silent  possibilities  of  eternity  :  he  will 
shake  off  the  remembrance  of  them  as  the  remnants  of  a 
troubled  dream ;  and  return,  with  a  shrug,  to  the  table  of 
his  enjoyment,  to  "  eat  and  drink,  since  to-morrow  he  dies." 
But  only  let  the  heart  beat  with  love,  and  the  eye  look  upon 
the  scene  through  the  perspective  of  an  infinite  sorrow  :  let 
it  be  the  child,  catching  the  last  accents  of  a  parent  vener- 
ated for  richness  of  wisdom  and  greatness  of  life  ;  or  the 
parents,  resigning  the  child  whose  infancy  is  the  most  grace- 
ful picture  in  their  memory,  to  whose  opening  wonder  they 
have  held  the  guiding  hand,  whose  expanding  reason  they 
have  sought  to  fill  with  order  and  with  light,  whose  deep- 
ening earnestness  of  duty  and  trust  of  pure  affection  has 
revived  their  fainting  will,  and  refreshed  them  with  a  thank- 
ful mind  :  and  do  you  think  that  any  doubt  will  linger 
there  ?  Do  you  suppose  that  that  father  or  that  child  will 
be  buried  in  the  earth  or  sea?  —  can  be  hidden  from  the 
eyes  by  mountains  of  dust,  or  the  >vaves  of  any  unfathom- 
able ocean  ?  Ah  no  !  All  matter  becomes  transparent  to 
inextinguishable  light  like  this :  and  soil,  and  air,  and  water, 
and  time,  and  the  realm  of  death,  must  let  this  lamp  of  God 
shine  through  :  and  we  follow  it  as  it  recedes  in  the  holy 
darkness :  till  we  too  await  the  divine  hand,  and  hope,  with 


THE   SINGLE   AND   THE   EVIL   EYE.  417 

that  help,  to  overtake  it  once  again.  Nay,  can  any  one 
deny,  that  it  is  often  possible  to  foreknow  a  man's  moral 
and  religious  faith  by  mere  acquaintance  with  the  general 
temper  of  his  mind? — that  even  his  outward  professions 
themselves  go  for  little  with  us,  if  they  are  violently  at 
variance  with  this  natural  expectation  ?  It  is  useless  to  tell 
me,  of  a  libertine  and  Epicurean,  that  he  believes  in  the 
divine  rule,  and  is  a  devout  worshipper  at  church.  I  know 
him  to  be  an  atheist  by  a  surer  mark  than  words  and  post- 
ures, —  by  a  necessity  of  corrupted  nature,  which  can  only 
be  reversed  by  a  renovated  life.  Nor  need  you  try  to  per- 
suade me  that  a  soul  pure,  tender,  merciful,  has  any  real 
faith  in  a  relentless  hell,  where  the  cry  of  penitence  can 
avail  no  more.  Such  things  may  stand  written  in  creeds 
which  those  gentle  lips  may  still  repeat :  but  let  the  heretic 
friend  or  son  die  away  from  her  arms,  and  she  will  find  some 
divine  excuse  for  keeping  the  torment  far  away.  The  eye 
of  love  is  too  clear  and  single,  to  allow  of  the  light  that  is 
in  it  becoming  so  dread  a  darkness  as  that  impossible  faith. 

Such  then  as  the  man  is,  such  is  his  belief :  and  the  faith 
to  which  he  bears  his  testimony,  testifies  in  return  of  him. 
He  sees  such  things  as  his  soul  is  qualified  to  show  him ;  nor 
can  he  describe  the  prospect  before  him  without  betraying 
the  direction  to  which  his  window  turns.  Let  it  not  be 
supposed  that  truth  and  falsehood  are  thus  rendered  arbi- 
trary and  precariously  distinguished ;  that,  as  there  is  a 
different  interpretation  of  life  and  discernment  of  God  for 
every  temper  of  the  mind,  all  are  probable  alike,  and  none 
deserving  of  our  trust.  It  would  be  so,  if  we  were  always 
imprisoned  in  the  same  temper,  and  unable  to  compare  it 
with  another ;  or  if,  on  the  admission  of  such  comparison, 
we  could  perceive  no  ground  of  difference,  no  reason  of 
preference.  But  we  are  ever  passing  from  mood  to  mood 
of  thought ;  and  it  is  not  hidden  from  us  which  are  sound 
and  worthy,  which  are  corrupt  and  mean.  We  know  our 
shameful  from  our  noble  hours ;  and  we  cannot  honestly 

27 


418  THE  SINGLE  AND   THE  EVIL  EYE. 

pretend  to  confide  in  the  insinuations  of  the  one,  as  we  do 
in  the  inspirations  of  the  other.  Who  can  affect  uncon- 
sciousness of  the  times  when  the  climate  of  his  soul  is  dull 
and  stagnant,  and  thick  with  fog  ;  and  when  it  is  clear  and 
fresh,  and  eager  to  transmit  the  light  ?  Who  can  presume 
to  compare  the  murky  doubts  and  damp  short-sightedness 
of  the  one,  with  the  sunny  outlook  and  far  horizon  of  the 
other;  or  ask,  in  good  faith,  "how  do  I  know  which  of  these 
views  is  true?"  So  long  as  the  cloud  does  not  fixedly  close 
upon  the  heart,  but  light  enough  darts  in  to  show  us  the 
intermediate  darkness,  excuse  is  shut  out,  and  hope  remains. 
The  slightest  opening  left  may  be  enlarged ;  heaven  will 
look  in,  and  may  melt  the  margin  as  it  passes  through. 
Whoever  will  reverence  the  glimpses  of  his  better  mind 
shall  find  them  multiplied  ;  and  even  whilst  they  pass,  they 
may  be  rich  in  revelations.  Faithfully  used,  the  momentary 
transit  may  expound  an  everlasting  truth ;  and  by  predict- 
ing, may  procure,  the  recurrence  of  like  happy  instants. 
Ashamed  of  no  pure  love,  distrustful  of  no  worthy  aspira- 
tion, forgetful  of  no  clear  insight  once  granted  to  the  soul, 
we  shall  find  the  weight  of  gloom  and  fear  fast  break  away, 
and  beneath  the  open  hemisphere  of  faith  shall  bend  in  the 
worship  of  joy,  and  say,  "  Thou  art  light,  and  in  thee  is  no 
darkness  at  all." 


XLI. 
THE   SEVEN  SLEEPERS. 


Isaiah  xlvi.  9,  10. 
remember  the  former  things  of  old.    for  i  am  god,  and  there  is 

NONE  else:  I  AM  GOD,  AND  THERE  IS  NONE  LIKE  ME;  DECLARING  THE 
END  FROM  THE  BEGINNING,  AND  FROM  ANCIENT  TIMES  THE  THINGS 
THAT  ARE    NOT   YET    DONE  !     SAYING,    MY   COUNSEL   SHALL   STAND. 

The  fictions  of  popular  piety  are  usually  inconstant  and 
local.  But  there  is  a  legend  of  the  early  Christianity,  whose 
ready  acceptance  within  a  few  years  of  its  origin  is  not 
less  remarkable  than  its  wide  diffusion  through  every  coun- 
try from  the  Ganges  to  the  Thames ;  —  a  legend  which  has 
spread  over  West  and  East  from  the  centres  of  Rome  and 
Byzantium ;  which  you  may  hear  in  Russia  or  in  Abyssinia ; 
and  which,  having  seized  on  the  ardent  fancy  of  Moham- 
med, is  found  in  the  Koran,  and  is  as  familiar  to  the  Arab 
and  the  Moor,  as  to  the  Spaniard  and  the  Greek. 

In  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  the  resident  proprie- 
tor of  an  estate  near  Ephesus  was  in  want  of  building-stone 
to  raise  some  cottages  and  granaries  on  his  farm.  His  fields 
sloped  up  the  side  of  a  mountain,  in  which  he  directed  his 
slaves  to  open  a  quarry.  In  obeying  his  orders  they  found 
a  spacious  cavern,  whose  mouth  was  blocked  up  with  masses 
of  rock  artificially  piled.  On  removing  these,  they  were 
startled  by  a  dog,  suddenly  leaping  up  from  the  interior. 
Venturing  further  in,  to  a  spot  on  which  the  sunshine,  no 
longer  excluded,  directly  fell,  they  discovered,  just  turning 
as  from  sleep,  and  dazzled  with  the  light,  seven  young  men 
of  dress  and  aspect  so  strange,  that  the  slaves  were  terri- 


420  THE   SEVEN    SLEEPERS. 

fied,  and  fled.  The  slumberers,  on  lising,  found  themselves 
ready  for  a  meal ;  and,  the  cave  being  open,  one  of  them 
set  out  for  the  city  to  buy  food.  On  his  way  through  the 
familiar  country  (for  he  was  a  native  of  Ephesus)  a  thou- 
sand surprises  struck  him.  The  road  over  which  yesterday's 
persecution  had  driven  him  was  turned ;  the  landmarks 
seemed  shifted,  and  gave  a  twisted  pattern  to  the  fields  : 
on  the  green  meadow  of  the  Cayster  had  sprung  up  a  circus 
and  a  mill.  Two  soldiers  were  seen  approaching  in  the 
distance :  hiding  himself  till  they  were  past,  lest  they 
should  be  emissaries  of  imperial  intolerance,  he  observed 
tliat  the  accoutrements  were  fantastic,  the  emblems  of  De- 
cius  were  not  there,  the  words  that  dropped  from  their  talk 
were  in  a  strange  dialect,  and  in  their  friendly  company 
was  a  Christian  presbyter.  From  a  rising  ground,  he 
looked  down  the  river  to  the  base  of  Diana's  hill ;  and 
lo!  the  great  temple,  —  the  world-wide  wonder,  —  was  no- 
where to  be  seen.  Arrived  at  the  city,  he  found  its  grand 
gate  surmounted  by  a  cross.  In  the  streets,  rolling  with 
new-shaped  vehicles  filled  with  theatrical-looking  people,  the 
very  noises  seemed  to  make  a  foreign  hum.  He  could  sup- 
pose himself  in  a  city  of  dreams ;  only  that  here  and  there 
appeared  a  house,  all  whose  rooms  within  he  certainly 
knew  ;  with  an  aspect,  however,  among  the  rest,  curiously 
dull  and  dwindled  as  in  a  new  window  looks  an  old  pane, 
preserved  for  some  line  scratched  by  poet  or  by  sage.  Be- 
fore his  errand  is  quite  forgot,  he  enters  a  bread-shop  to 
make  his  purchase ;  offers  the  silver  coin  of  Decius  in  pay- 
ment ;  when  the  baker,  whose  astonishment  was  already 
manifest  enough,  can  restrain  his  suspicions  no  longer  ;  but 
arrests  his  customer  as  the  owner  of  unlawful  treasure, 
and  hurries  him  before  the  city  court.  There  he  tells  his 
tale  :  that  with  his  Christian  companions  he  had  taken 
refuge  in  the  cave  from  the  horrors  of  the  Decian  perse- ' 
cution  ;  had  been  pursued  thither,  and  built  in  for  a  cruel 
death  ;  had  fallen  asleep  till  wakened  by  the  returning  sun, 


THE   SEVEN   SLEEPERS.  421 

let  in  again  by  some  friendly  and  unhoped-for  hand ;  and 
crept  back  into  the  town  to  procure  support  for  life  in 
their  retreat.  And  there  too,  in  reply,  he  hears  a  part  of 
the  history  which  he  cannot  tell :  that  Decius  had  been 
dethroned  by  death  nearly  two  centuries  ago,  and  paganism 
by  the  truth  full  one :  that,  while  heaven  has  wrapped  him 
in  mysterious  sleep,  the  earth's  face,  in  its  features  physical 
and  moral,  had  been  changed  :  that  the  empire  had  shifted 
its  seat  from  the  Tiber  to  the  Bosphorus  :  that  the  temple 
had  yielded  to  the  church ;  the  demons  of  mythology  to  the 
saints  and  martyrs  of  Christendom  ;  and  that  he  who  had 
quitted  the  city  in  the  third  century,  returned  to  it  in  the 
fifths  and  stood  under  the  Christian  protection  of  the  second 
Theodosius.  It  is  added,  that  the  Ephesian  clergy  and  their 
people  were  conducted  by  the  confessor  to  the  cave,  ex- 
changing wonders  as  they  conversed  by  the  way  ;  and  that 
the  seven  sleepers,  having  attested  in  their  persons  the  pre- 
serving hand  of  God,  and  re-told  the  story  of  their  life,  and 
heard  snatches  of  the  news  of  nearly  two  hundred  years, 
gave  their  parting  blessing  to  the  multitude,  and  sank  in 
the  silence  of  natural  death. 

For  the  purpose  of  mental  experiment,  fable  is  as  good  as 
fact.  To  reveal  our  nature  to  itself,  it  is  often  more  ef- 
fectual for  the  imagination  to  go  out  upon  a  fiction,  than  for 
the  memory  to  absorb  a  chronicle.  When  the  citizens  and 
the  sleepers  met,  each  was  awe-struck  at  the  other ;  yet  no 
one  had  been  conscious  of  any  thing  awful  in  himself.  The 
youths,  startled  by  the  police  of  paganism,  had  risen  up 
from  dinner,  leaving  their  wine  untasted ;  and  on  arriving 
breathless  at  their  retreat,  laid  themselves  down,  dusty, 
weary,  ordinary  creatures  enough.  They  resume  the  thread 
of  being  where  it  hung  suspended ;  and  are  greeted  every- 
where with  the  uplifted  hands,  and  shrinking  touch,  of 
devout  amazement.  And  the  busy  Ephesians  had  dressed 
themselves  that  morning,  and  swept  their  shops,  and  run 
down  to  the  office  and  the  dock,  with  no  idea  that  they 


422  THE    SEVEN    SLEEPERS. 

were  not  the  most  commonplace  of  mortals,  pushing  through 
a  toilsome  and  sultry  career.  They  are  stopped  mid-day  to 
be  assured,  that » their  familiar  life  is  an  incredible  romance, 
that  their  city  is  steeped  in  visionary  tints,  and  they  them- 
selves are  as  moving  apparitions.  And  they  are  told  this, 
when  they  cannot  laugh  at  it,  or  brush  it,  like  Sunday  mem- 
ories, away.  For  who  are  they  that  say  such  things,  gazing 
into  them  with  full,  deep  eyes  ?  Counterparts  in  their  looks 
of  all  the  marvels  they  profess  to  see ;  —  proofs  that  the  old, 
dead  times  were  once  alive,  warm  with  young  passions,  noble 
with  young  faith ;  astir  with  limbs  that  could  be  weary,  and  hid- 
ing sorro-ws  whose  sob  and  cry  might  be  overheard.  Would 
not  the  men,  returning  to  their  homes,  be  conscious  of  un- 
derstanding life  anew  ?  Would  they  not  look  down  upon 
their  children,  and  up  at  the  portraits  of  their  ancestors, 
with  a  perception  from  which  a  cloud  had  cleared  away  ? 
Would  the  fashion  of  the  drawing-room,  the  convention  of 
the  club,  the  gossip  of  the  exchange,  retain  all  their  absorb- 
ing interest ;  and  the  wrestlings  of  doubt  and  duty,  the 
sighs  of  reason,  the  conflicts  of  affection,  the  nearness  of 
God,  spoken  of  by  prophets  in  the  trance  of  inspiration,  and 
by  the  church  in  its  prayer  of  faith,  appear  any  more  as 
idle  words?  No;  the  revelation  of  a  reality  in  the  past, 
would  produce  the  feeling  of  an  unreality  in  the  present. 
Many  invisible  things  would  shape  themselves  forth,  as  with 
a  solid  surface,  reflecting  the  heavenly  light,  and  sleeping  in 
the  colors  of  pure  truth  :  many  visible  things  would  melt  in 
films  away,  and  retreat  like  the  escaping  vista  of  a  dream. 
When  the  people's  anthem  went  up  on  the  Sabbath  morn- 
ing, "  O  God  of  our  fathers ! "  that  grave,  historic  cry  would 
not  seem  to  set  his  spirit  far,  but  to  bring  it  overhanging 
through  the  very  spaces  of  the  dome  above.  When  the 
holy  martyrs  were  named  with  the  glory  of  affectionate 
praise,  their  silent  forms  would  seem  to  group  themselves 
meekly  round.  And  when  the  upper  life  of  saints  and 
sages  —  of  suffering  taken  in  its  patience  and  goodness  in 


THE   SEVEN    SLEEPERS.  423 

its  prime,  of  the  faithful  parent  and  the  Chri^-like  child  — 
was  mentioned  with  a  modest  hope,  it  would  appear  no 
fabled  island,  for  which  the  eye  might  stretch  across  the 
sea  in  vain,  but  a  visible  range  of  everlasting  hills,  whose 
outline  of  awful  beauty  is  already  steadfast  above  the 
deep. 

Now  whence  would  spring  an  influence  like  this  ?  what 
source  must  we  assign  to  the  power  which  such  incident 
would  have  exerted  over  its  witnesses  ?  The  essence  of  it 
is  simply  this  :  the  past  stood  up  in  the  face  of  the  present, 
and  spake  with  it :  and  they  found  each  other  out :  and 
each  learned,  that  he  beheld  the  other  with  true  eye,  and 
himself  with  false.  The  lesson  is  not  set  beyond  our  reach. 
'No  miracle  indeed  is  sent  to  teach  it ;  no  grotesque  extracts 
from  bygone  centuries  walk  about  among  us.  But  our  ties 
with  other  days  are  not  broken ;  fragments  of  them  stand 
around  us  ;  notices  of  them  lie  before  us.  The  recesses  of 
time  are  not  hopelessly  dark ;  opened  by  the  hand  of  labor, 
and  penetrated  by  the  light  of  reason,  their  sleeping  forms 
will  rise  and  re-enter  our  living  world,  and  in  showing  us 
what  they  have  been,  disclose  to  us  what  we  are.  The 
legendary  youths  are  but  the  impersonations  of  history; 
and  their  visit  to  the  Ephesians,  but  a  parable  of  the  relation 
between  historical  perception  and  religious  faith. 

The  great  end,  yet  the  great  difficulty,  of  religion  is,  so 
to  analyze  our  existence  for  us,  as  to  distinguish  its  essential 
spirit  from  its  casual  forms,  the  real  from  the  apparent,  the 
transient  from  the  eternal.  Expeiience  mixes  them  all  up 
together,  and  arranges  nothing  according  to  its  worth.  The 
dress  that  clothes  the  body,  and  the  body  that  clothes  the 
soul,  appear  in  such  invariable  conjunction,  and  become  so 
much  the  signs  of  one  another,  that  all  run  into  one  object, 
and  tempt  us  to  exaggerate  the  trivial  and  depreciate  the 
great.  That  which  a  man  has,  and  that  which  he  is,  move 
about  together,  and  live  in  the  same  house ;  till  our  fancy 
and   our  faith   grow   too   indolent   to   separate  them;   we 


424  THE    SEVEN   SLEEPERS. 

fasten  him  to  his  possessions,  and  when  they  are  dropped 
in  death,  think  that  he  has  gone  to  nought.  It  is  the  busi- 
ness of  faith  to  see  all  things  in  their  intrinsic  value :  it  is 
the  work  of  experience  to  thrust  them  on  us  in  accidental 
combinations :  and  hence  the  flattering,  sceptical,  blinding 
influence  of  a  passive  and  unresisted  experience.  Hence  it 
is  that  time  is  apt  to  take  away  a  truth  for  each  one  that 
he  gives,  and  rather  to  change  our  wisdom  than  to  increase 
it ;  and  while  foresight  assuredly  comes  to  the  man,  insight 
will  often  tarry  with  the  child.  When  the  eye  first  looks 
on  life,  it  is  not  to  study  its  successions,  but  to  rest  upon  its 
picture :  its  loveliness  is  discerned  before  its  order :  its 
aspect  is  interpreted,  while  its  policy  is  quite  unknown. 
Our  early  years  gaze  on  all  things  through  the  natural  glass 
of  beauty  and  affection,  which  in  religion  is  the  instrument 
of  truth.  But  soon  it  gets  dimmed  by  the  breath  of  usage, 
which  adheres  to  all  except  natures  the  most  pure  and  fine : 
and  a  cold  cloud  darkens  the  whole  universe  before  us. 
Day  by  day,  the  understanding  sees  more,  the  imagination 
less,  in  the  scene  around  us  ;  till  it  seems  all  made  up  of  soil 
to  grow  our  bread,  and  clay  to  build  our  house :  and  we 
become  impatient,  if  any  one  pretends  to  find  in  it  the  depth 
which  its  atmosphere  has  lost  to  us,  and  the  grandeur  which 
has  faded  from  our  view.  We  dwell  in  this  world,  like  dull 
serfs  in  an  Alpine  land  ;  who  are  attached  indeed  to  their 
home  with  the  strong  instincts  of  men  cut  off  from  much 
intercourse  with  their  kind,  and  whose  passions,  wanting 
diffusion,  acquire  a  local  intensity;  who  therefore  sigh  in 
absence  for  their  mountains,  as  the  Arab  for  his  desert ;  but 
in  whom  there  is  no  sense  of  the  glories  amid  which  they 
live  ;  who  wonder  what  the  traveller  comes  to  see  ;  who  in 
the  valleys  close  by  the  glacier,  and  echoing  with  the  tor- 
rent, observe  only  the  timber  for  their  fuel,  and  the  paddock 
for  their  kine.  We  are  often  the  last  to  see  how  noble  are 
our  opportunities,  to  feel  how  inspiring  the  voices  that  call 
us  to  high  duties  and   productive  sacrifice :   and  while   we 


THE   SEVEN    SLEEPERS.  425 

loiter  on  in  the  track  of  drowsy  habit,  esteeming  our  lot 
common  and  profane,  better  hearts  are  looking  on,  burning 
within  them  to  stand  on  the  spot  where  we  stand,  to  seize 
its  hopes,  and  be  true  to  all  its  sacredness.  It  is  an  abuse 
of  the  blessings  of  experience,  when  it  thus  stupefies  us  with 
its  benumbing  touch,  and  in  teaching  us  a  human  lesson, 
persuades  us  to  unlearn  a  divine.  The  great  use  of  custom 
is  to  teach  us  what  to  expect,  to  familiarize  us  with  the 
order  of  events  from  day  to  day,  that  we  may  compute  our 
way  aright,  and  know  how  to  rule  whatever  lies  beneath 
our  hand.  This  is  the  true  school  for  the  active,  working 
will.  But  for  the  thoughtful,  wondering  affections,  a  higher 
discipline  is  needed ;  an  excursion  beyond  the  limits  where 
the  senses  stop,  into  regions  where  usage,  breathless  and 
exhausted,  drops  behind ;  where  the  beaten  ways  of  ex- 
pectation disappear,  and  we  must  find  the  sun-path  of  faith 
and  reason,  or  else  be  lost.  Only  by  baffled  anticipation  do 
we  learn  to  revere  what  is  above  our  hand  :  and  custom 
must  break  in  pieces  before  us,  if  we  are  to  keep  right  the 
everlasting  love  within  us,  as  well  as  the  transient  life  with- 
out. Surrendering:  itself  to  habit  alone,  the  mind  takes  step 
by  step  right  on,  intent  on  the  narrow  strip  of  its  own  time, 
and  seeing  nothing  but  its  linear  direction.  But  brought 
to  the  untrodden  mountain-side,  it  is  arrested  by  the  open 
ground,  and  challenged  by  the  very  silence,  and  compelled 
to  look  abroad  in  space,  and  see  the  fresh,  wide  world  of 
God ;  where  all  roads  have  vanished,  except  the  elemental 
highways  of  nature,  —  the  sweep  of  storm-felled  pines,  and 
the  waving-line  where  melted  waters  flow.  Now,  in  shaking 
off  the  heavy  dreams  of  custom,  and  waking  us  up  from  the 
swoon  so  fatal  to  piety,  religion  receives  the  greatest  aid 
from  history ;  and  though  they  seemed  to  be  engaged  in 
opposite  offices,  they  only  divide  between  them  the  very 
same.  Religion  strips  the  costume  from  the  life  that  is: 
History  restores  the  costume  to  the  life  that  was:  and  by 
this  double  action  we  learn  to  feel  sensibly,  where  the  mere 


426  THE   SEVEN   SLEEPERS. 

dress  ends  and  the  true  life  begins ;  how  much  thievish 
time  may  steal,  and  corroding  age  reduce  to  dross ;  and 
what  treasure  there  is,  which  no  thief  approacheth  or  moth 
corrupteth.  Those  who  are  shut  up  in  the  present,  either 
by  involuntary  ignorance,  or  by  voluntary  devotion  to  its 
immediate  interests,  contract  a  certain  slowness  of  imagina- 
tion, most  fatal  both  to  wisdom  and  to  faith.  Restrained 
in  every  direction  by  agglutination  to  the  type  of  personal 
experience,  their  thought  cannot  pass  beyond  vulgar  and 
material  rules  ;  cannot  believe  in  any  aspect  of  existence 
much  different  from  things  as  they  are ;  in  any  beings  far 
removed  from  those  that  walk  the  streets  to-day;  in  any 
events  that  would  look  absurd  in  the  newspaper,  or  affect 
sagacious  politicians  with  serious  surprise.  Their  feeling 
can  make  nothing  of  the  distinction  between  the  mortal  and 
the  immortal,  the  spirit  and  the  form  of  things.  If  they 
moralize  on  human  affairs,  it  is  only  to  say  one  of  the  two 
things  which,  since  the  days  of  Ecclesiastes,  have  always 
fallen  from  Epicurism  in  its  sentimental  mood :  that  all 
things  continue  as  they  were,  and  there  can  be  nothing  new 
under  the  sun ;  or  that  nothing  can  continue  as  it  is,  and 
all  that  is  sublunary  passes  as  the  shadow ;  and  as  this  dieth, 
so  dieth  that.  A  mind,  rich  in  the  past,  is  protected  against 
these  mean  falsehoods ;  can  discriminate  the  mutable  social 
forms,  from  that  permanent  humanity,  of  whose  affections, 
whose  struggles,  whose  aspirations,  whose  Providential 
course,  history  is  the  impressive  record ;  and  thus  trained, 
finds  it  easy  to  cast  an  eye  of  faith  upon  the  living  world, 
and  discern  the  soul  of  individuals  and  of  communities 
beneath  the  visible  disguise,  so  deceitful  to  the  shallow,  so 
suggestive  to  the  wise.  The  habit  of  realizing  the  past  is 
essential  to  that  of  idealizing  the  present. 

But,  besides  this  general  affinity  between  historical 
thought  and  the  religious  temper,  a  more  direct  influence 
of  knowledge  upon  faith  is  not  difficult  to  trace.  The  great 
objects  of  our  belief  and  trust  cannot  be  conceived  of,  ex- 


THE   SEVEN   SLEEPERS.  427 

cept  in  the  poorest  and  faintest  way,  where  all  is  blank 
beyond  mere  personal  experience.  A  man  to  whom  the 
present  is  the  only  illuminated  spot,  closely  pressed  by  out- 
lying darkness  all  ai'ound,  will  vainly  strive  to  meditate,  for 
example,  on  the  eternity  of  God.  What  sort  of  helpless 
attempt  even  can  he  make  towards  such  a  thing?  He  knows 
the  measure  of  an  hour,  a  day,  a  year  :  and  these  he  may 
try  to  multiply  without  end,  to  stretch  along  the  line  of  the 
infinite  life.  But  this  numerical  operation  carries  no  im- 
pression :  it  has  no  more  religion  in  it,  than  any  other  long 
sum.  The  mere  vacant  arithmetic  of  duration  travels  in- 
effectually on  ;  glides  through  without  contact  with  the 
Living  God  ;  and  gives  only  the  chill  of  a  void  loneliness. 
Time,  like  space,  cannot  be  appreciated  by  merely  looking 
into  it.  As  in  the  desert,  stretching  its  dreary  dust  to  the 
horizon,  all  dimensions  are  lost  in  the  shadowless  sunshine  ; 
so,  over  a  mere  waste  of  years  the  fancy  strains  itself 
only  to  turn  dizzy.  As,  in  the  one,  we  want  objects  to 
mark  the  retreating  distance,  the  rising  spire,  the  sheltered 
green,  the  swelling  light  on  headland  slope ;  so,  in  the  other, 
we  need  visible  events  standing  off  from  view  to  make  us 
aware  of  the  great  perspective.  And  for  the  ends  of  faith, 
they  must  be  moral  vicissitudes,  the  deeply-colored  inci- 
dents of  human  life  :  or,  the  vastness  which  we  see  we  shall 
not  love  :  we  shall  traverse  the  infinite,  and  never  worship. 
Science,  as  well  as  history,  has  its  past  to  show  :  —  a  past, 
indeed,  much  larger  ;  running,  with  huge  strides,  deep  into 
the  old  eternity.  But  its  immensity  is  dynamical,  not 
divine ;  gigantesque,  not  holy ;  opening  to  us  the  monoto- 
nous perseverance  of  physical  forces,  not  the  various  struggles 
and  sorrows  of  free-will.  And  though  sometimes,  on  pass- 
ing from  the  turmoil  of  the  city,  and  the  heats  of  restless 
life,  into  the  open  temple  of  the  silent  universe,  we  are 
tempted  to  think,  that  there  is  the  taint  of  earth,  and  here 
the  purity  of  heaven ;  yet  sure  it  is,  that  God  is  seen  by  us 
through  man,  rather  than  through  nature :  and  that  without 


428  THE   SEVEN   SLEEPEES. 

the  eye  of  our  brother,  and  the  voices  of  our  kind,  the  winds 
might  sigh,  and  the  stars  look  down  on  us  in  vain.  ^N'or  is 
the  Christian  conception  of  the  second  and  higher  existence 
of  man  heartily  possible  to  those  who  are  shut  out  from  all 
historic  retrospect.  At  least  the  idea  of  other  nations  and 
other  times,  the  mental  picture  of  memorable  groups  that 
have  passed  away;  the  lingering  voices  of  poets,  heroes, 
saints,  floating  on  the  ear  of  thought ;  are  a  great,  if  not  an 
indispensable  aid  to  that  hope  of  the  future,  which  can 
scarcely  maintain  itself  without  attendant  images.  That 
old,  distant,  venerable  earth  of  ours,  with  its  quaint  people, 
lies  silent  in  the  remote  places  of  our  thought :  and  is  not  so 
far  from  the  scene  of  scarcely  more  mysterious  life,  where 
all  now  abide  with  God  :  the  same  perspective  embraces 
them  both  ;  it  is  but  the  glance  of  an  eye  from  below  to 
above  :  and  as  the  past  reality  of  the  one  does  not  prevent 
its  being  now  ideal,  so  the  present  ideality  of  the  other  is 
no  hindrance  to  its  reality.  The  two  states,  —  that  in  the 
picture  of  history,  and  that  on  the  map  of  faith, — recede 
almost  equally  from  our  immediate  experience;  and  the 
conception  of  the  one  is  a  sensible  help  to  the  realization  of 
the  other.  Indeed  there  is  not  a  truth  of  religion  in  refer- 
ence to  the  future  and  the  unseen  which  the  knowledge  of 
the  past  does  not  bring  nearer  to  our  minds.  And  when  we 
invoke  this  aid  to  faith,  we  give  it  an  ally,  not,  as  might 
seem,  accessible  to  learning  only,  but  singularly  open  to  the 
resources  of  ordinary  men.  Happily,  the  very  fountains 
and  depositories  of  our  religion  are  historical ;  and  records 
of  human  affairs,  not  theories  of  physical  nature,  are  sup- 
plied in  the  sacred  writings,  from  which  we  learn  the  lessons 
of  Providence.  Apart  from  all  questions  of  inspiration, 
there  is  no  grander  agent  than  the  Bible  in  this  world.  It 
has  opened  the  devout  and  fervid  East  to  the  wonder  and 
affection  of  the  severer  West.  It  has  made  old  Egypt  and 
Assyria  more  familiar  to  Christendom  than  its  own  lands  : 
and  to  our  people  at  large  the  Pharaohs  are  less  strange 


THE   SEVEN   SLEEPEES.  429 

than  the  Plantagenets,  and  Abraham  is  more  distinct  than 
Alfred.  The  Hebrew  prophet  finds  himself  in  the  presence 
of  the  English  tradesman,  or  domesticated  in  the  Scotch 
village ;  and  is  better  understood  when  he  speaks  of  Jordan, 
than  the  poet  at  home  who  celebrates  the  Greta  or  the 
Yarrow.  Scenes  of  beauty,  pictures  of  life,  rise  on  the 
people's  thought  across  the  interval  of  centuries  and  conti- 
nents. Pity  and  terror,  sympathy  and  indignation,  fly  over 
vast  reaches  of  time,  and  alight  on  many  a  spot  else  un- 
claimed by  our  humanity,  and  unconsecrated  by  the  presence 
of  our  God.  It  is  a  discipline  of  priceless  value ;  securing 
for  the  general  mind  materials  of  thought  and  faith  most 
rich  and  varied ;  and  breaking  that  servile  sleep  of  custom, 
which  is  the  worst  foe  of  true  belief  and  noble  hope.  From 
the  extension  of  such  discipline,  according  to  opportunity, 
whosoever  is  vigilant  to  keep  a  living  faith  will  draw  ever 
fresh  stores;  and,  that  he  may  better  dwell  in  heart  with 
Him  "who  declareth  the  end  from  the  beginning,"  will 
"remember  the  former  things  of  old." 


XLII. 

THE    SPHERE  OF  SILENCE. 
I.  MAN'S. 


Luke  vi.  45. 
of  thb  abundance  of  the  heart,  the  mouth  8peaketh. 

It  is  often  assumed,  as  if  implied  in  these  words,  that  what- 
ever is  a  fit  subject  for  thought  is  necessarily  the  fit  subject 
of  conversation.  As  language  is  but  the  expression  of  the 
mind,  it  seems  natural  to  suppose  that  the  mind  must  appear 
through  its  medium  ;  that  the  matters  which  occupy  the  lips 
must  be  those  which  engage  the  heart;  and  that  no  deep 
and  powerful  interest  can  fail  to  overflow,  in  its  full  pro- 
portion, on  our  communications  with  each  other.  That 
about  which  silence  is  the  habit,  and  speech  the  exception, 
—  which,  even  in  the  sweet  counsel  of  friends,  glides  in  but 
for  the  moment  and  flits  away,  —  cannot,  it  is  aflirmed,  have 
any  strong  and  constant  hold  upon  men  ;  and  by  its  tran- 
siency confesses  itself  to  be  an  evanescent  interest.  Many 
there  are  who  apply  this  rule  to  religion ;  and  who  would 
measure  the  reality  and  force  of  its  influence  on  the  charac- 
ter by  the  frequency  and  explicitness  of  its  appearance  in 
our  intercourse.  If  we  are  truly  penetrated  with  the  same 
highest  concerns;  if  we  are  standing  in  the  same  attitude 
before  God ;  if  the  same  solemnity  of  life  covers  us  with  its 
cloud,  and  the  same  glory  of  hope  guides  us  by  its  fire ;  — 
how  can  we  do  otherwise  than  always  speak  together  of  a 
lot  so  awful  and  a  faith  so  high  ?  May  it  not  be  fairly 
doubted,  whether  those  who  are  drawn  by  no  experience, 


THE   SPHERE  OF  SILENCE.  431 

inspired  by  no  joy,  melted  by  no  sorrow,  to  break  their 
reserve  on  these  things,  have  any  devout  belief  of  them 
at  all  ? 

There  seems  to  be  a  show  of  reason  in  this :  and  when  it 
is  urged  on  the  modest  and  self-distrustful,  they  often  gather 
from  it  a  lesson  of  inward  reproach,  and  know  not  how  to 
answer.  Yet  the  appeal  has  always  failed  to  gain  its  end. 
It  has  not  unsealed  the  lips  of  men  to  converse  of  divine, 
as  they  would  of  human,  things :  a  certain  loneliness,  which 
cannot  be  removed,  still  hangs  over  their  loftiest  relations; 
and  they  are  stricken,  as  with  dumbness  to  one  another, 
before  God.  There  is,  indeed,  a  foundation  in  our  unper- 
verted  nature  for  this  repugnance  to  mingle  talk  and  wor- 
ship, to  look  into  another's  eye  and  say  the  thought  of 
inward  prayer ;  and  it  is  a  harsh  and  false  interpretation  to 
take  such  repugnance  as  the  sign  of  irreligion.  Many  an 
earnest  and  devout  heart,  too  lowly  to  teach  others,  too 
quiet  to  proclaim  itself,  you  may  find  watching  the  scene 
of  human  things  through  a  constant  atmosphere  of  piety ; 
recognizing  a  holy  light  on  all ;  touching  each  duty  with  a 
gentle  and  willing  love ;  yet  saying  not  a  word,  because 
unable  to  make  a  special  tale  of  that  which  is  but  the  truth 
of  nature.  And  many  a  family  group  may  be  observed, 
gathering  round  the  decline  of  *  some  venerated  life,  well 
knowing  whither  it  fast  tends  :  and  he  who  discerns  nothing 
beneath  the  surface,  may  think  it  but  a  worldly  thing,  that 
all  the  care  seems  spent  in  providing  outward  alleviation, 
and  sheltering  from  inward  shock,  and  keeping  some  glow 
of  tempered  cheerfulness  about  the  slackening  pulse  and 
deepening  chill  of  life.  But  an  eye  less  obtuse  may  often 
read  a  secret  meaning  in  all  this,  and  recognize  in  it  the 
symbol  of  an  unspoken  mystery :  the  sacred  hope,  the  per- 
fect trust,  the  will  laid  low,  the  love  raised  high,  make  their 
confession  by  faithful  act,  and  learn  the  right  of  a  holy 
silence.  And,  assuredly,  he  to  whose  ready  speech  the 
sanctities  most  quickly  come,  who  has  no  difficulty  in  run- 


432  THE   SPHERE   OF   SILENCE. 

ning  over  everlasting  things,  and  never  pauses  at  the  awful 
name,  and  can  coin  the  words  for  what  is  most  dear  and 
deep,  is  not  often  the  most  truly  devout.  The  sects  and 
classes,  moreover,  who  make  the  greatest  point  of  bringing 
their  Christianity  into  the  drawing-room,  the  street,  or  the 
senate,  after  beguiling  you  into  respect  and  perhaps  admira- 
tion, continually  let  out  the  other  half  of  the  truth  by  some 
surprising  coarseness,  or  some  selfish  intolerance.  Yet,  in 
spite  of  these  appearances,  it  is  altogether  true  that  "  of  the 
abundance  of  the  heart,  the  mouth  speaketh." 

Language  has  two  functions,  easily  distinguished,  yet 
easily  forgotten.  It  is  an  instrument  of  communication 
with  one  another ;  and  an  instrument  of  thought  within 
ourselves.  Plato  used  to  say  that  thought  and  speech  are 
the  same :  only  that  thought  is  the  mind's  silent  dialogue 
with  itself.*  It  need  not  however  be  always  silent :  in  its 
higher  moods  it  presses  for  utterance :  it  cannot  go  on  to 
rise  without  casting  away  the  burthen  of  its  words  ;  and 
outbursts  of  song  and  pulses  of  prayer  are  as  successive 
strokes  of  the  ever-beating  wing  of  aspiration.  But  in  this 
we  want  no  one  to  hear  us :  we  could  bear  no  watchful 
human  presence :  the  voice  is  but  the  relief  to  the  spirit 
overcharged ;  and  our  nature  could  not  thus  revolve  in  its 
own  circuit,  except  in  the"  loneliness  which  shelters  it  from 
foreign  attractions.  Speech  therefore  assumes  two  forms  ; 
converse,  and  soliloquy  :  the  one  intended  to  convey  our 
thought  abroad ;  the  other  to  detain  it  at  home  :  the  one, 
opening  what  we  wish ;  the  other,  what  we  hide  :  the  one, 
the  common  talk  of  life;  the  other,  equivalent  to  silence, 

*  The  definition  is  so  apposite  that  I  am  tempted  to  subjoin  it :  — 

HE.  OiiKOvv  Sidvoia  fikv  Koi  K6yos  ravrSv  irK^p  6  fiev  evrhs  Trjs  ^vxvs 
irphs  aur)]v  ^idhoyos  &v€v  (pwvrjs  yiyj/Sficvos  tout'  avrh  ijfuu  iiroivO' 
fxdtrdr],  Siduoia; 

OEAI.     ndvv  fikv  ovv. 

Sophista  263.  E.  The  same  thought  is  more  fully  presented  in  the 
Tlieaetetus,  189.  E.  190.  A. 


THE   SPHERE   OF   SILENCE.  433 

except  to  those  who  may  overhear.  Of  the  latter  only  did 
Jesus  say,  that  "  out  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart,  the  mouth 
speaketh."  He  knew  that  what  men  utter  face  to  face  is 
often  far  different  from  the  real  thought  of  their  minds ; 
that  they  are  no  less  ashamed  of  their  best  feelings  than  of 
their  worst :  and  that,  by  watching  the  coin  of  words  that 
passes  between  them  in  the  open  commerce  of  life,  you  can 
ill  judge  of  the  secret  wealth  or  insolvency  of  their  souls. 
To  estimate  them  aright,  you  must  wait  till  the  company 
disperse  ;  and  linger  near  them  when  they  speak,  amid  the 
silence  of  God,  not  to  others,  but  from  themselves.  Nor 
does  this  divergence  of  their  private  thought  from  their 
public  conversation  imply  the  slightest  approach  to  artful- 
ness and  duplicity  :  on  the  contrary,  it  is  possibly  the  most 
artless  of  whom  it  is  most  true.  The  false  man  has  lost 
the  half  of  himself  which  makes  this  variance.  The  double- 
dealer  has  but  a  single  nature :  but  in  the  pure  and  guileless, 
there  are  two  souls ;  of  which  the  one  comes  forward  amid 
human  things  with  quick  and  genial  speech,  while  the  other 
ever  sits  with  finger  on  the  lips.  The  one  achieves  its  end, 
with  energy  and  stir  like  that  of  the  city's  industry;  the 
other  noiselessly,  like  the  spring  growth  of  forest  and  of 
field  :  the  one  opens  gladly  out,  the  other  shrinks,  as  if 
scorched,  within,  at  the  light  of  the  human  eye.  Our  nature 
is  as  a  flower  that  shines  of  itself  with  one  color  by  night, 
and  reflects  from  the  sun  another  by  day ;  and  those  who 
see  only  its  borrowed  gayety  at  noon  know  nothing  of  its 
own  fainter  beauty  beneath  the  stars.  The  truth  is,  the 
presence  of  our  fellows,  and  the  exchange  of  looks  and 
words  with  them,  are  the  great  instruments  of  self-conscious- 
ness, and  are  suitable  for  all  those  parts  and  faculties  of  a 
man  which  are  improved  by  study  and  attention.  But  there 
are  elements  of  our  being  that  were  never  meant  for  this ; 
which  change  their  character  by  being  breathed  upon ;  or 
which  vanish  in  the  sound  that  utters  them.  They  will 
insist  on  flowing  unobstructed  in  their  natural  bed :  and  if 

28 


434  THE   SPHERE   OF   SILENCE. 

gossip  will  arrest  and  dam  them  up,  they  are  turned  from 
the  torrent  of  health  into  the  marsh  of  pestilence. 

There  are  things  too  low  to  be  spoken  of ;  which  indeed 
become  low  by  being  spoken  of.  The  appetites  are  of  this 
kind.  They  were  meant  to  be  the  beginnings  of  action,  not 
the  end  of  speech :  and  under  the  dropping  of  words,  they 
are  as  wholesome  food  analyzed  into  constituent  poisons. 
God  lights  that  fire,  and  does  not  want  our  breath  to  blow 
it,  or  the  fuel  of  our  thought  to  feed  it.  The  inferior  im- 
pulses in  man  are  glorified  by  being  placed  at  the  natural 
disposal  of  higher  sentiments ;  they  are  submitted  to  the 
transforming  power  of  generous  aspiration  and  great  ideas. 
Wielded  by  these,  they  are  far  above  the  level  of  sense ; 
and  are  not  only  controlled  by  conscience,  but  dignified  by 
the  light  of  beauty,  and  ennobled  by  the  alliance  of  affection. 
Their  just  action  is  secured  far  less  by  repressive  discipline 
against  them,  than  by  nourishing  the  strength  of  the  human- 
ities that  use  them ;  by  keeping  them  wholly  inattentive  to 
themselves ;  by  breaking  every  mirror  in  which  their  own 
face  may  be  beheld.  Purity  consists,  not  in  the  ascetic  abne- 
gation of  the  lower,  but  in  a  Christian  merging  of  the  lower 
in  the  higher ;  in  the  presence  of  a  divine  perception  so  quick 
to  recoil  from  degradation,  that  avoidance  aforethought  need 
not  be  studiously  provided.  And  purity  of  mind  is  forfeited, 
less  by  exceeding  rules  of  moderation,  than  by  needing 
them;  —  by  attention  to  the  inferior  pleasures,  as  such. 
There  might  be  less  of  moral  evil  in  the  rude  banquet  of 
heroic  times,  marked  perhaps  by  excess,  but  warmed  by 
social  enthusiasm,  and  idealized  by  lofty  minstrelsy,  than 
in  many  a  meal  of  the  prudent  dietitian,  setting  a  police 
over  his  sensations,  and  weighing  out  the  scruples  of  enjoy- 
ment for  his  palate.  Not  rules  of  quantity,  but  habits  of 
forgetfulness,  constitute  our  emancipation  from  the  animal 
nature.  You  cannot  make  any  good  thing  of  the  voluptu- 
ary's mind,  regulate  it  as  you  may.  It  may  be  covered 
over  with  an  external  disguise :  it  may  be  strengthened  by 


THE  SPHERE  OF   SILENCE.  435 

self-restraint  for  social  use ;  but  with  all  its  wise  ways,  what 
trace  can  God  behold  there  of  his  own  image?  He  sees 
at  best  Aristotle's  "rational  animal,"  not  one  of  Christ's 
"children  of  the  Highest."  Most  futile  is  the  attempt  so 
prevalent  in  our  days,  to  base  the  morality  of  the  appetites 
on  physiology ;  to  open  the  way  to  heaven  with  the  dis- 
secting knife  ;  to  give  up  the  Prophets  for  the  "  Constitution 
of  Man  ; "  and  with  a  gospel  of  digestion  to  replace  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  Let  us  indeed  accept  such  help  as 
may  come  from  this  source  also  :  but  let  us  rate  it  at  its 
worth  and  assign  it  to  its  place.  Good  for  the  remedy  of 
bodily  disease,  it  is  not  good  for  the  formation  of  character ; 
and  it  is  odious  as  the  substitute  for  religion.  Who  ever 
found  himself  nearer  God  by  inspecting  drawings  of  internal 
inflammation  ?  There  may  be  those,  to  whom  the  check  of 
abjectness  and  fear  may  be  of  service,  and  who  must  walk 
a  hospital  before  they  can  respect  a  law.  But  as  an  ele- 
ment of  education  this  kind  of  teaching  is  fatally  misplaced. 
The  ideas  it  communicates  cannot  co-exist  with  the  high, 
devout  affections,  which  are  the  natural  guides  and  safe- 
guards of  a  pure  heart :  they  can  occur  only  in  uneasy 
succession  with  them,  and  are  repelled  by  them  with  un- 
conquerable antipathy.  Indeed,  in  good  minds,  not  needing 
recovery  from  fall,  all  mere  physical  and  prohibitive  morality 
is  liable  to  be  a  source  of  direct  contamination.  By  simply 
talking  about  your  rules,  you  may  turn  innocence  into  guilt. 
The  mere  discussion  of  a  habit  necessarily  converts  it  into 
a  self-conscious  indulgence  or  privation  ;  and  thereby  totally 
alters  its  real  character  and  its  moral  relations ;  and  may 
make  that  evil  which  was -not  evil .  before.  And  thus,  the 
very  cure  of  outwawi  excess'  may  sometimes  be  attended 
with  the  creation  of  inward  corruption ;  and  what  was 
harmless  till  you  mentioned  it,  becomes  sinful  by  being 
named.  So  are  words  great  powers  in  this  world ;  not  only 
telling  what  things  are,  but  making  them  what  else  they 
would  not  be :  and  they  cannot  encroach  upon  the  sphere 


436  THE    SPHERE   OF   SILENCE. 

of  silence,  without  desecrating  the  sanctuary  of  nature,  and 
banishing  the  presence  of  God. 

There  are  also  things  too  high  to  be  spoken  of:  and  which 
cease  to  be  high,  by  being  made  objects  of  ordinary  speech. 
Language  occupies  the  mid-region  of  our  life,  between  the 
wants  that  ground  us  on  the  earth,  and  the  affections  that 
lift  us  to  the  skies.  If  we  were  all  animal,  we  could  not 
use  it :  if  we  were  as  God,  we  should  give  it  up,  and  lapse, 
like  him,  into  eternal  silence.  It  is  the  instrument  of  busi- 
ness, of  learning,  of  mutual  understanding,  of  common  ac- 
tion ;  the  tool  of  the  intellect  and  the  will ;  the  glory  of  a 
nature  more  than  brutal,  the  mark  of  one  less  than  the 
divine  ;  as  truly  the  characteristic  of  labor  in  the  mind,  as 
the  sweat  of  the  brow  of  the  body's  toil ;  emblem  at  once  of 
blessing  and  of  curse  ;  recalling  an  Eden  half  remembered, 
while  we  work  in  the  desert  that  can  never  be  forgot. 
When  we  try  to  raise  it  to  higher  functions,  it  only  spoils 
the  thing  it  cannot  speak ;  which  becomes,  like  an  uttered 
secret,  a  treasure  killed  and  gone.  Religion  in  the  soul  is 
like  a  spirit  hiding  in  enshadowed  forests  :  call  it  into  the 
staring  light,  it  is  exhaled  and  seen  no  more;  or  as  the 
whispering  of  God  among  the  trees ;  peer  about  behind 
the  leaves,  and  it  is  not  there.  Men  in  deep  reverence  do 
not  talk  to  one  another,  but  remain  with  hushed  mind  side 
by  side.  Each  one  feels,  though  he  cannot  tell  how  it  is, 
that  words  limit  what  faith  declares  unlimited  ;  that  they 
divide  and  break  to  pieces  what  it  comprehends  and  em- 
braces as  a  whole ;  that  they  distribute  into  dead  members 
what  it  discerns  as  a  life  of  beauty  indivisible  ;  that  they 
reduce  to  successive  propositions  what  it  adores  as  a  simul- 
taneous and  everlasting  reality.  The  whole  oj^eration  of 
the  mind  in  communicating  by  speech  is  the  direct  opposite 
of  that  which  bends  in  worship  ;  the  one  laboring  after 
definite  conceptions  and  scientific  reasoning ;  the  other 
intuitively  evading  both,  and  bursting  the  fetters  which  the 
provinces  of  nature  own,  but  the  infinity  of  God  rejects. 


THE   SPHERE   OF   SILENCE.  437 

Hence  it  is  that  men  lower  the  voice  as  they  distantly  ap- 
proach these  things,  and  deem  it  fit  to  let  their  words  be 
few.  Spoken  reverence  passes  into  cant :  or,  in  more  elabo- 
rate forms,  into  philosophy.  I  do  not  say  that  there  may 
not  be  an  intermediate  period,  when  earnest  men  are  able  to 
establish  a  mutual  language  of  religion  which,  in  their  day, 
is  true  to  them :  but  from  the  moment  of  its  first  freshness 
it  begins  to  fade  ;  and  the  hour  of  its  birth  is  the  beginning 
of  its  death.  And  soon-  the  devoutest  spirits  will  be  those 
that  say  the  least ;  and  the  currency,  once  priceless,  now 
debased,  will  remain  chiefly  with  Pharisees  and  professional 
divines.  True,  there  is  a  sceptic  as  well  as  a  devout  silence 
on  the  highest  things.  But  who  is  there  that  cannot  tell  at 
a  glance  the  difference  between  the  shrinking  of  unbelief, 
and  the  shrinking  of  reverence?  Look  only  at  their  eye; 
and  the  shallow  gloss  of  the  one  is  not  like  the  deep  light  of 
the  other.  The  one  pushes  the  matter  externally  away ;  the 
other  hides  it  internally  from  view.  The  one  is  averse  to 
take  the  divine  ideas  into  the  mind  ;  the  other  recoils  from 
putting  them  out.  The  one  yields  to  the  repulsion  of  dis-, 
like;  the  other  exercises  the  shelter  of  an  ineffable  love. 
There  was  truth,  and  not  absurdity,  in  the  Friends'  silent 
meeting  before  God ;  —  a  truth  indeed  too  great  and  high 
for  a  permanent  institution  addressed  to  our  poor  nature, 
but  affording  an  infallible  memorial  of  the  genuine  inspira- 
tion that  once  breathed  through  that  noble  people.  And 
what  even  were  the  whining  voice  and  tremulous  speech, 
but  the  instinctive  attempt  to  escape  from  the  vulgarities  of 
life,  and  reach  the  strange  music,  broken,  dissonant,  and 
sweet,  in  which  divine  and  human  things  conflict  and  recon- 
cile themselves  ?  Nor  is  it  essentially  different  in  any  wor- 
ship :  for,  though  we  meet  together,  it  is  not  to  speak  with 
one  another  :  it  is  not  even  to  be  spoken  to  and  taught ;  for 
that  could  produce  nothing  but  theology :  if  it  is  not  for 
absolute  silence  of  devotion  (which  were  best,  if  it  were 
possible),  it  is  only  for  soliloquy  ;  which  is  but  the  thought 


438  THE   SPHERE   OF   SILENCE. 

before  God,  of  one,  for  the  guidance  of  a  silence  before  God, 
of  all.  It  is  to  Him  we  lay  ourselves  open,  and  not  to  our 
neighbor :  only,  the  sense  of  brethren  near  who  have  con- 
cerns like  our  own  that  bring  them  hither,  who  feel  with 
us  his  mystic  touch,  and  look  up  to  his  heavenly  hope,  and 
remember  the  healing  sorrows  of  his  mercy,  and  expect  his 
early  call,  and  trust  his  everlasting  shelter,  —  is  a  mighty 
help  to  those  deep  realities  which  are  too  great  except  for 
the  consentaneous  grasp  of  our  collective  soul.  Prayer,  like  \ 
poetry,  can  never  be  any  thing  but  thought  aloud :  if  ever  %/ 
it  is  "  said  for  the  sake  of  them  that  stand  by,"  it  is  a  mock- 
ery and  a  pretence,  from  which  every  soul  that  is  akin  to 
Christ  will  shrink  with  abhorrence  and  with  awe ;  and  which 
none  who  had  been  altogether  steeped  in  his  spirit  could 
ever  ascribe  to  him.  Nor  let  any  one  say  that  this  makes 
the  office  of  religion  one  of  uncertain  imagination,  transient 
as  the  colors  of  beauty,  and  vague  as  the  impressions  of  a 
dream.  Never  do  we  more  completely  deceive  ourselves, 
than  when  we  fancy  that  the  work  of  the  understanding  is 
durable,  while  that  of  our  richer  genius  is  evanescent ;  that 
what  we  know  is  solid,  what  we  aspire  after  and  adore  in 
thought  is  unsubstantial :  that  the  achievements  of  physical 
discoveiy  are  the  fixed  products  of  time,  while  the  visions 
of  poetry  are  but  the  adornments  of  a  passing  age.  How 
plainly  does  historical  experience  contradict  this  estimate  I 
Of  no  nation,  of  no  period,  within  the  limits  of  known  and 
transmitted  civilization,  does  the  most  advanced  science 
remain  true  for  us  :  while  of  none  has  the  genuine  poetry 
perished :  Thales  and  Archimedes  have  been  obsolete  for 
centuries;  while  old  Homer  is  fresh  as  ever,  and  delights 
the  modern. schoolboy  only  less  than  he  did  the  Greek  hero. 
The  acuteness  of  the  Athenian  intellect  has  left  us  no  ac- 
count of  any  law  of  nature,  which  the  greatest  masters  of 
ancient  knowledge  deciphered  as  we  do  now:  but  the  strains 
of  Job  and  the  rapt  song  of  Isaiah  will  never  be  worn  out, 
while  a  human  soul  is  on  the  earth,  and  a  divine  heaven 


THE   SPHERE  OF   SILENCE.  439 

above  it.  The  readings  of  philosophy,  the  creeds  of  theol- 
ogy, are  alike  transitory:  but  the  discernment  of  sacred 
truth  and  beauty  is  perpetual,  and  without  essential  change. 
Never  knowing  but  in  part,  we  find  all  our  knowledge  suc- 
cessively vanishing  away  ;  but  in  adoring  the  grandeur,  feel- 
ing the  solemnity,  and  aspiring  to  the  perfection  of  the 
whole,  the  inspirations  of  genius  and  the  yearnings  of  faith 
are  consentaneous  and  eternal. 


XLin. 

THE  SPHERE  OF  SILENCE, 
n.  GOD»S. 

John  l  1  &  14. 

nr  the  beginning  was  thb  word  :  and  thk  word  was  with  god ; 
and  the  word  was  god.  and  the  word  was  made  flesh,  and 
dwelt  among  us  (and  we  beheld  his  glory, — the  glory  as  op 

THB  FATHER'S  ONLY-BOBN)  FULL  OF  GRACE  AND  TRUTH. 

Human  speech,  it  has  already  been  observed,  is  employed 
in  two  different  ways,  issuing  from  states  of  mind  distinct 
and  almost  opposite.  "We  speak  to  impart  information ; 
and  we  speak  in  confession  of  ourselves ;  in  intentional 
address  to  the  minds  of  others,  or  in  unconscious  revela- 
tion of  our  own ;  drawn  by  an  external  end  which  we  wish 
to  compass,  or  propelled  by  internal  feeling  which  we 
cannot  but  express.  In  the  one  case,  we  begin  with  our 
purpose,  and  then  lay,  with  such  skill  as  we  can  command, 
our  train  of  approach  towards  its  realization :  in  the  other, 
we  start  from  the  emotion  that  occupies  us,  and  advance 
along  a  line  of  tendency,  never  lawless,  yet  ever  unforeseen. 
The  one  discloses  the  policy  at  which  our  action  aims  ;  the 
other,  the  affection  whence  it  issues.  In  the  one,  we  teach, 
we  expound,  we  report  the  past,  we  predict  the  future :  in 
the  other,  we  remember,  we  hope,  we  paint  the  soul's  imme- 
diate vision,  and  own  its  everlasting  faith.  In  the  one,  we 
talk  and  reason  :  in  the  other,  we  meditate  and  sing.  His- 
tory and  science  are  the  birth  of  the  one ;  art  and  religion, 
of  the  other ;  morals  and  philosophy,  of  both. 


THE   SPHERE   OF   SILENCE.  441 

But  man  is  not  the  only  being  that  has  this  two-fold 
voice.  God  also  puts  to  a  double  engagement  his  silent 
instruments  of  expression.  He  too  lives  amid  a  company  of 
minds;  and  to  them  he  has  to  say  something  of  what  al- 
ready he  has  done,  and  of  what  he  yet  designs  to  do, — to 
communicate  the  order  of  the  scene  on  which  they  stand, 
and  put  into  the  hand  of  expectation  a  clew  of  faithful 
guidance.  But  he  also  is  a  Mind,  reserving  within  himself 
infinite  powers,  ever  awake  and  moving ;  thought,  large  as 
space  and  deep  and  solemn  as  the  sea;  holiness,  stern  as 
the  mountains,  and  pure  as  the  breath  that  sighs  around 
them ;  a  mercy,  quick  as  the  light,  and  gentle  as  the  tints 
that  make  it.  It  is  not  for  these  to  remain  inert  and  re- 
pressed, as  though  they  were  not.  They  must  have  way, 
and  reach  their  overflow :  and  if  only  we  place  our  spirits 
right,  we  may  catch  the  blessed  flood,  and  find  it  as  the  wa- 
ters of  regeneration.  Beyond  and  behind  every  definite 
end  of  which  it  is  needful  to  apprise  us,  there  actually  exists 
in  the  divine  nature  an  indefinite  affluence  of  living  perfec- 
tion, which  cannot  go  for  nothing  in  the  universe.  It  may 
have  not  a  word  to  say  to  others  ;  but  whispers  will  escape 
it  on  its  own  account :  it  may  not  be  heard ;  and  yet  articu- 
lately overheard :  and,  could  we  only  find  the  focus  of  those 
stray  tones,  we  should  understand  more  than  any  knowledge 
can  tell  :  we  should  learn  the  very  prayers  that  Heaven 
makes  for  only  Heaven  to  hear ;  and  should  catch  the  so- 
liloquy of  God.  And  not  only  can  we  find  it,  but  we  are 
ever  in  it ;  and  beneath  the  dome  of  this  universe,  which  is 
all  centre  and  no  circumference,  we  cannot  stand  where  the 
musings  of  the  eternal  mind  do  not  murmur  round  us,  and 
the  visions  of  his  lonely,  loving  thought,  appear. 

Works  of  science  and  history  are  the  medium  in  which 
men  speak  to  us  ;  works  of  poetry  and  art,  that  in  which 
they  speak  from  themselves.  With  these  the  heavenly  dia- 
lects precisely  correspond  ;  being  in  fact  the  great  originals, 
whereof  these  are  but  faint  echoes.      The  outward  o^ects 


442  THE  SPHERE  OF   SILENCE. 

of  science  and  history,  —  the  phenomena  recorded  by  the 
one,  and  the  events  narrated  by  the  other,  —  all  the  calcula- 
ble happenings  of  the  frame  and  order  of  things,  are  God's 
didactic  address,  in  which  he  gives  us  the  information  we 
most  need  about  his  ways.  And  that  which  awakens  poe- 
try and  art,  the  invisible  light  that  bathes  the  world  —  the 
nameless  essence  that  fills  it,  —  the  devout,  uplifted  look  of 
all  things,  —  is  the  personal  effusion  of  God's  spirit,  by  which 
the  secret  spreads  of  what  he  is.  In  the  system  of  nature 
and  life  he  teaches  us  his  will :  in  the  heauty  of  nature  and 
life,  he  meditates  from  himself.  If  we  and  all  similar  be- 
ings were  away,  the  former  would  become  unmeaning ;  and 
the  busy  movements,  the  mighty  forces,  the  mechanical  suc- 
cessions, the  breathless  haste  of  moments,  the  patient  roll  of 
ages,  would  seem  to  be  superseded,  and  to  be  a  mere  sense- 
less stir,  were  they  not  in  sympathy  with  teeming  life,  and 
a  discipline  of  countless  minds.  But,  in  our  presence  or  our 
absence,  the  everlasting  beauty  would,  still  remain  :  all  that 
lay  beneath  the  eternal  eye  would  sleep  in  the  serene  light, 
and  wait  no  leave  from  us.  That  is  a  thought  which  God 
has  writ  only  for  himself :  a  Word  of  his  that  asks  no  au- 
dience. Yet  he  cares  not  to  hide  it  from  us  :  and  he  has 
made  us  so  like  himself,  that  a  glance  suffices  to  interpret, 
and  to  fill  us  with  his  blessed  inspiration. 

God  is  related  to  his  works  and  ways,  just  as  genius  to 
the  creations  of  poetry  or  art  that  issue  from  it :  and  both 
must  be  apprehended  in  the  same  manner,  —  by  the  softened 
gaze  of  reverence,  not  by  the  dry  sharpsightednessof  knowl- 
edge. All  our  acute  study  of  such  things  is  but  a  delusion 
and  a  flattery,  if  we  suppose  it  really  to  open  to  us  the 
sources  from  which  they  come.  You  may  analyze,  if  you 
will,  the  dramas  of  Shakspeare,  the  paintings  of  Raphael, 
the  music  of  Beethoven ;  you  may  disengage  for  separate 
inspection,  action,  character,  sentiment  and  costume  ;  group- 
ing and  colors  ;  theme  and  treatment ;  and  you  may  thus 
know  each  composition  at  every  turn ;  discern  its  structure; 


THE   SPHERE   OF   SILENCE.  448 

recognize  its  proportions ;  lay  your  finger  on  its  happiest 
lights.  But  do  you  reproduce  the  state  of  mind  that  first 
created  it?  Do  you  get  upon  the  traces  of  the  author's  way 
of  work  ?  Are  your  rules  and  laws,  when  you  have  drawn 
them  out,  a  faithful  representation  of  the  soul  from  whose 
expression  you  have  deduced  them  ?  Can  they  spread,  be- 
neath any  other  view,  the  many-clustered  plain  of  life,  as  it 
lay  beneath  the  player's  large  and  genial  eye :  or  fill  the 
world  again  with  the  rich  tints  and  noble  forms  that  re- 
flected their  repose  upon  the  painter's  face  :  or  send  through 
any  second  heart  the  wild  night-winds  that  sighed  and  sung 
through  the  deaf  musician's  soul  ?  This,  you  will  own,  your 
criticism  cannot  do.  At  best,  it  does  but  sketch  an  arti^ 
ficial  method,  which,  if  it  could  be  perfectly  obeyed,  might 
be  a  substitute  for  the  natural  one.  Only,  it  cannot  be 
obeyed ;  and  when  the  attempt  is  made,  it  produces  not 
a  living  likeness,  but  a  dead  imitation  ;  human  nature  turned 
into  wax,  and  the  heavens  flattened  to  the  canvas,  and  the 
passion  of  melody  reduced  to  an  uneasiness  among  the 
strings.  The  canons  of  taste,  so  far  from  being  an  approach 
to  the  mind  of  the  artist,  are  the  extreme  point  of  departure 
from  it ;  being  the  expression  of  a  dissecting  self-conscious 
ness,  the  intrusion  of  which  would  have  been  fatal  to  his 
work. 

Now  this  principle  appears  to  me  to  be  rigorously  appli- 
cable to  our  contemplation  of  the  works  and  ways  of  God. 
What  we  call  science  is  nothing  but  our  critical  interpreta- 
tion of  nature ;  our  reduction  of  it  into  intelligible  pieces 
or  constituents,  that  we  may  view  successively  what  we 
cannot  grasp  at  once.  And  it  no  more  exhibits  to  us  the 
real  sources  from  which  creation  sprang,  or  the  modes  of  its 
appearing,  than  the  critic's  system  shows  us  the  poet's  soul. 
The  supposition  is  as  derogatory  to  God  in  the  one  case,  as 
it  is  insulting  to  genius  in  the  other.  The  books  which 
repeat  to  us  the  laws  of  the  physical  world  usually  mislead 
us  on  this   matter.     They  enumerate   certain  forces,  with 


444  THE   SPHERE   OF   SILENCE. 

which  they  pretend  to  be  on  the  most  intimate  footing,  and 
which  are  able  to  do  great  things  in  the  universe  ;  and  by- 
putting  them  together,  in  this  way  and  that,  they  show  what 
events  would  come  about :  they  then  point  out,  that  such 
events  do  actually  occur ;  and  think  it  proved  that  the  real 
phenomena  are  manufactured  after  their  pattern,  and  truly 
spring  from  the  causes  in  their  list.  Thus  Newton  is  said 
to  have  detected  the  powers  that  determine  the  planetary 
orbits.  He  found  them,  we  are  assured,  to  be  but  two  ;  one^ 
the  primary  impulse  that  commenced  the  motion  of  each 
globe,  and  sent  it  careering  on  its  way ;  the  other,  the  con- 
stant attraction  that  curves  it  ever  to  the  sun.  So  fixed  is 
this  representation  in  our  thoughts  by  the  exposition  of 
astronomers,  that  it  is  generally  accepted  as  a  true  picture 
of  the  fact :  and,  in  order  to  trace  the  ellipse  of  our  Earth 
or  Mars,  the  two  forces  are  supposed  to  have  been,  once 
upon  a  time,  actually  put  together,  and,  like  the  separate 
parts  of  a  machine,  brought  to  co-operate.  Yet,  fondly  as 
this  image  clings  to  our  fancy,  no  thoughtful  man  can  seri- 
ously hold  to  so  gross  an  error.  Was  there  then  really  a 
certain  moment  in  the  past,  when  the  divine  hand  shot 
forth  the  globes,  and  then  condensed  into  the  sun  the  power 
to  bend  them  into  their  ever-circling  course  ?  Is  it  an 
historic  fact  in  the  universe,  that  this  artillery  of  the  skies 
was  once  played  off,  and  might  be  seen  by  any  spirit-witness 
passing  by  ?  No :  the  planets  are  not  a  mere  set  of  bowls ; 
nor  was  the  great  court  of  the  zodiac  bounded  and  made 
plane  for  such  a  game  as  that!  No  one  can  well  believe 
that  this  is  an  account  of  what  actually  occurred :  travel 
through  the  past  with  the  most  vigilant  eye,  you  nowhere 
arrive  at  such  event.  The  imagination  of  it  is  a  pure  fiction 
which  begins  and  ends  with  the  mind  that  thinks  it.  What 
then,  you  will  say,  has  Newton  done?  He  has  done  this: 
he  has  found  or  defined  two  forces  which,  if  they  were  to 
operate  under  the  conditions  prescribed,  would  produce  just 
such  phenomena  as  we  observe.     He  has  discovered  a  way 


THE   SPHERE   OF   SILENCE.  445 

in  which  the  same  thing  might  he  done ;  has  detected,  not 
the  actual  causes,  but  a  system  of  equivalents  that  will  serve 
the  end  as  well.  By  laying  these  before  us,  he  fulfils  the 
aim  of  knowledge :  he  gives  us  a  rule  by  which  to  compute 
the  course  of  nature,  and  from  the  present  to  foretell  the 
approaching  attitudes  of  things.  He  draws  a  true  picture 
for  us  of  all  the  future,  and  of  all  the  past,  that  lies  within 
the  existing  order  :  but  of  the  source  of  that  order,  or  the 
posture  of  affairs  before  it  rose,  he  cannot  afford  the  faintest 
glimpse.  And  so  is  it  throughout  the  sciences.  Whenever 
they  give  you  a  report  of  causes^  they  tell  you,  not  the  real 
process,  but  its  equivalent :  that  by  which  we  should  worJc^ 
not  that  by  which  God  does  work.  The  optician  enumerates 
the  several  colors  of  which  light  is  made  :  but  who  can  think 
that  thus  we  learn  the  order  of  God's  creation,  — ^nd  that 
first  he  provided  the  yellow,  red,  and  blue,  and  then  put  them 
together  to  form  the  one  white  ray  ?  The  chemist  will  give 
you  a  list  of  what  he  finds  in  the  bursting  seed,  the  shooting 
plant,  the  growing  animal ;  but  do  you  suppose  that  the  divine 
hand  really  measures  these  doses  of  hydrogen  and  carbon ; 
that  in  bringing  out  the  gentle  grass,  and  shedding  its  glory 
on  the  forest  tree,  and  tracing  the  dear  human  face,  and  put- 
ting a  strange  depth  into  the  eye,  God  works  by  the  phar- 
macopoeia or  the  scale  of  chemical  equivalents  ?  Ah  no  !  else 
were  he  not  the  Creator,  but  the  manufacturer,*  of  this  uni- 
verse ;  a  mixer  of  ingredients  ;  a  worker  in  wood  and  iron  : 
little  more  than  a  Vulcan,  Neptune,  or  ^sculapius,  with  an- 
other name.  To  be  chief  artificer,  chief  dyer,  chief  engineer ; 
to  be  able  to  construct  a  world,  to  tincture  the  drapery  of 
clouds,  and  poise  the  clustered  stars;  —  this  is  not  to  be  the 
everlasting  God.  The  steps  by  which  we  slowly  understand 
are  not  the  order  in  which  he  instantly  discerns  and  eter- 
nally executes.  The  laws  which  we  extract  are  but  the 
patient  alphabet  in  which  he  spells  out  successively  to  us  the 
tendencies  of  his  spontaneous  thought.     They  are  the  rules 

•  Not  ToiririiSt  but  dr}t^iovpy6s. 


446  THE   SPHERE  OF   SILENCE. 

which  our  criticism  draws  from  the  analysis  of  his  pro- 
ductions: but  like  the  precepts  taken  from  the  study  of 
ancient  art,  they  express  our  afterthought,  not  his  fore- 
thought ;  and  though  they  are  a  true  light  to  our  knowledge, 
they  are  a  false  shadow  on  our  religion.  In  one  sense,  no 
doubt,  they  are  the  voice  of  God.  As  men  talk  to  us  and 
tell  us  what  they  have  been  doing  and  what  they  still  in- 
tend to  do ;  yet  shelter  from  us,  perhaps  almost  from  them- 
selves, their  inmost  love  and  worship;  so  here  does  God 
adopt  our  speech,  address  himself  to  our  instruction,  and 
teach  us  the  outward  purpose  of  his  will ;  but  opens  not 
the  infinite  well-spring  whence  all  the  power  and  the  order 
flow. 

Is  this  then  the  only  voice  of  His  that  comes  to  us  from 
the  physical  world?  It  is  the  only  voice  in  which  he 
directly  accosts  us,  and  commands  our  obedience.  But  we 
are  always  in  his  presence;  and  there  would  seem  to  be 
when  he  forgets  that  we  are  by ;  and  his  own  nature  con- 
fesses itself  through  all  the  loneliness  of  space ;  and  we 
may  apprehend  its  essence  rather  than  its  act.  To  do  this, 
we  have  but  to  look  on  creation  as  a  picture,  instead  of 
examining  it  as  a  machine.  It  must  fix  our  eye  as  a  work 
of  beauty,  not  as  a  structure  of  ingenuity.  The  simplest 
impressions  from  nature  are  the  deepest  and  most  devout : 
and  to  get  back  to  these,  after  spoiling  the  vision  with  the 
artificial  glasses  of  science,  is  the  difficult  wisdom  of  the 
pure  heart.  The  modest  flower,  nestling  in  the  meadow 
grass ;  the  happy  tree,  as  it  laughs  and  riots  in  the  wind ; 
the  moody  cloud,  knitting  its  brow  in  solemn  thought ;  the 
river,  that  has  been  flowing  all  night  long ;  the  sound  of  the 
thirsty  earth,  as  it  drinks  and  relfehes  the  rain ;  these  things 
are  as  a  full  hymn,  when  they  flow  from  the  melody  of 
nature,  but  an  empty  rhythm,  when  scanned  by  the  finger 
of  art.  The  soul,  as  it  sings,  cannot  both  worship  and  beat 
time.  The  rainbow,  interpreted  by  the  prism,  is  not  more 
sacred,  than  when   it  was  taken  for   the  memorandum  of 


THE   SPHERE   OF   SILENCE.  447 

God's  promissory  mercy,  painting  the  access  and  recess  of 
his  thought.  The  holy  night,  that  shows  us  how  much 
more  the  sunshine  hides  than  it  reveals,  and  warns  us  that 
the  more  clearly  we  see  what  is  beneath  our  feet,  the  more 
astonishing  is  our  blindness  to  what  is  above  our  heads,  is 
less  divine,  when  watched  from  the  observatory  of  science, 
than  when  gazed  at  from  the  oratory  of  private  prayer. 
To  the  one  it  is  the  ancient  architecture,  to  the  other  the 
instant  meditation  of  the  Most  High.  And  so  is  it  with  all 
the  common  features  of  our  world.  The  daily  light,  fresh 
as  a  young  child  every  morning,  and  dignified  as  the  mel- 
lowness of  age  at  even ;  the  yearly  changes,  less  fair  and 
dear  to  our  infancy  than  to  our  maturity,  —  the  weariness 
of  nature  as  she  drops  her  leaves,  the  glee  with  which  she 
hangs  them  out  again,  —  the  silver  mists  of  autumn,  the 
slanting  rains  of  spring,  the  sweeping  lines  of  drifted  snow ; 
all  are  as  the  natural  language  of  God,  —  the  turns  of  his 
almighty  thought,  —  to  the  spirit  that  lies  open  to  their 
wonder :  to  others,  they  are  but  a  spinning  of  the  earth,  an 
evaporation  of  the  waters,  an  equilibrium  in  the  winds. 

It  is  the  same  in  the  case  of  human  life,  as  in  that  of  the 
outward  world.  There  also  our  knowledge  does  not  repre- 
sent God's  ways ;  our  knowledge  being  a  critical  deduction 
of  rules  which  his  ways  indeed  have  furnished  but  did  not 
follow.  There  also  we  should  think  of  him,  not  as  con- 
structing mechanically  for  an  end,  but  as  creating  spontane- 
ously from  himself.  In  our  review  of  ancient  or  modern 
nations,  we  are  anxious  to  account  for  the  peculiarities  that 
mark  them,  and  the  influence  they  have  had  upon  mankind ; 
and  we  search  their  climate  and  geography,  their  inheritance 
of  language  and  tradition,  their  relative  position  and  ex- 
perience, for  the  cause's  of  their  special  genius  and  institu- 
tions. And  such  enumeration  is  invaluable  in  its  fruits  of 
practical  and.  political  wisdom.  Only  let  us  not  imagine 
that  God  works  by  the  sort  of  composition  of  causes,  which 
our  poor  intellect  is  obliged  to  fancy  to  itself.     He  did  not 


448  THE   SPHERE  OF   SILENCE. 

model  the  Hebrew,  or  fabricate  the  Greek,  after  the  fashion 
of  our  historical  analysis,  saying  to  himself  "  This  climate 
will  do,  but  then  it  must  have  that  organization,  and  be 
mixed  with  such  and  such  sort  of  memories."  It  were  con- 
temptible to  think  that  he  thus  moulds  and  serves  up  the 
nations,  like  one  that  holds  a  receipt-book  in  his  hand. 
And  so  too  with  the  individual  mind.  Philosophy,  justly 
curious  to  observe  the  structure  of  our  faculties,  and  the 
nature  of  those  wondrous  operations  by  which  man  alone, 
of  all  creatures,  has  acquired  a  history,  endeavors  to  untwine 
the  finished  web  of  thought,  and  lay  out  the  variegated 
filaments,  —  the  warp  of  constant  nature,  and  the  woof  of 
flying  experience,  —  from  which  the  texture  seems  to  have 
been  composed.  And  this  also  is  well:  opening  to  us  the 
deepest  problems  and  yielding  many  useful  lessons.  Only 
we  must  not  suppose  that  God  makes  men  after  the  pattern 
of  Locke's  or  Mill's  human  nature ;  providing  the  raw 
material  of  so  many  simple  ideas,  with  measured  lots  of 
pleasure  and  pain,  to  be  mixed  up  into  a  Plato,  or  fused 
down  into  a  Channing.  Nor  ought  we  to  think  that  he 
preconceives  a  particular  task  to  be  accomplished  for  the 
world,  and  then  proceeds  to  make  and  move  men,  like  fitting 
puppets,  to  perform  it.  The  souls  of  the  sons  of  God  are 
greater  than  their  business;  and  they  are  thrown  out,  not 
to  do  a  certain  work,  but  to  be  a  certain  thing ;  to  bear 
some  sacred  lineaments,  to  show  some  divine  tint,  of  the 
Parent  Mind  from  which  they  come.  The  mighty  spirits 
of  our  race  are  as  the  lyric  thoughts  of  God  that  drop  and 
breathe  from  his  almighty  solitude  ;  —  transient  chords  fly- 
ing forth  from  the  strings  as  his  solemn  hand  wanders  over 
the  possibilities  of  beauty.  One  only  finished  expression 
of  his  mind,  one  entire  symmetric  strain,  has  fallen  upon 
our  world.  In  Christ,  we  have  the  overflowing  Word,  the 
deep  and  beautiful  soliloquy,  of  the  Most  High ;  not  his 
message  and  his  argument,  —  for  in  that  there  were  no 
religion,  —  but   the  very  poetry  of   God,  which  could  not 


THE   SPHEBE  OF   SILENCE.  449 

have  been  told  us  face  to  face,  but  only  cast  in  meditation 
upon  the  silence  of  history.  Not  more  certainly  do  we  dis- 
cern in  the  writings  of  Shakspeare  the  greatest  manifestation 
of  human  genius,  than  in  the  reality  of  Christ  the  highest 
expression  of  the  Divine.  Not  more  clearly  does  the  wor- 
ship of  the  saintly  soul,  breathing  through  its  window 
opened  to  the  midnight,  betray  the  secrets  of  its  affections 

—  than  the  mind  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  reveals  the  perfect 
thought  and  inmost  love  of  the  All-ruling  God.  Were  he 
the  only-born,  —  the  solitary  self-revelation,  —  of  the  Creative 
Spirit,  he  could  not  more  purely  open  the  mind  of  Heaven : 
being  the  very  Logos,  —  the  apprehensible  nature  of  God, 

—  which,  long  unuttered  to  the  world,  and  abiding  in  the 
beginning  with  him,  has  now  come  forth,  and  dwelt  among 
us  full  of  grace  and  truth. 


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